Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Payments: The Clash of Banks, PayPal - 10.01.2007 - American Banker Print Article

Nice article here:Payments: En Garde! The Clash of Banks, PayPal. How to judge Paypal...?

Many EU observers often claim the e-money directive hasn't worked at all, allowing only 15 competitors market entry in 5 years. So hasn't it worked? Future will demonstrate how wrong those observers are. Paypal has used the e-money regulation as a stepping stone for it's current banking license in Luxembourg. And will now use the banking license to further skim the banking market.

Meanwhile banks struggle with legacy systems, legacy thinking and legacy regulators... so here's definitely a revolution in the making.....

Payments and Settlements News 53

Payments and Settlements News 53 is out now with:

News and events:
· Eurosystem – SEPA signing events at Sibos 2007
· European Commission – EU-Pay pilots launched
· ESCB - "TARGET2 is targeting start of operation"
· SEPA - European payment processors in interoperability pact
· European Commission - VISA fined for Morgan Stanley exclusion in the United Kingdom
· National Bank of Belgium - "The Single Euro Payments Area: SEPA"
· De Nederlandsche Bank - "Navigating towards SEPA: the transition to European payment instruments in the Netherlands"
· PCI Security Standards Council - administering PIN Entry Device (PED) Security Requirements
· NACHA - fee structure for Secure Vault Payments announced
· United States – Update on Revolution Money

Articles, speeches and reports:
· European Commission - "Improving the competitiveness of European card-based payments", speech by Charlie McCreevy
· Sveriges Riksbank - "The Costs of Paying – Private and Social Costs of Cash and Card Payments"
· National Bank of Belgium - "Financial Stability Review 2007"
· Suomen Pankki - "A qualitative study to identify factors that influence Finnish consumers to change their payment behaviour"
· De Nederlandsche Bank - "Overview of Financial Stability in the Netherlands"
· "Mobile Payment Models and Their Implications for NextGen MSPs"
· gtnews - "Prepaid Cards: a Payments Revolution"
· Innopay - "Understanding buyer and seller behaviour for improved payment product development"
· Fed Kansas City - "Complex landscapes: Mobile
· payments in Japan, South Korea and the United States"
· Fed New York - "Technology Diffusion within Central Banking: The Case of Real-Time Gross Settlement"
· Fed Chicago - "Using Payment Innovations to Improve Transportation Networks"
· Fed Boston - "Consumer Payments Research: Industry Reference Guide"
· Fed Boston - "Mobile Phone: The New Way to Pay?"
· United States - "Why Once-Soaring Contactless Payment Has Lost Some Altitude"
· Reserve Bank of New Zealand - "Payments and the concept of legal tender"
· Bank of Japan - "Payment Flows for Settlement of Foreign Exchange Trades: Japan's Experience since 2002"
· Reserve Bank of Australia - Payments System Board Annual Report 2007

Zaypay, a new 'Paypal voor mini-payments'

M-payments service provider Mollie will enter the market with Zaypay, a payment system for small valure payments (below 1 euro). They view themselves, according to this Emerce article as the 'Paypal for mini-payments' and will launch next month. All non-regular payments (sms, 0900, Wallie etc) will be supported as well as iDeal.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Elf arrestanten lid van Oost-Europese groep

Het Parool - Archief

Elf arrestanten lid van Oost-Europese groep
Skimmerbende opgerold PAUL VUGTS

AMSTERDAM - Met elf arrestaties heeft de Amsterdamse recherche dit weekeinde een belangrijke tak van een professioneel opererende bende 'skimmers' opgerold. Deze afdeling van de Oost-Europese groepering verdiende met pinpasfraude dit jaar aanzienlijke bedragen.

De recherche volgde de groep al geruime tijd. Het nu opgerolde onderdeel van de internationale organisatie is in elk geval verantwoordelijk voor inbraken in zes tuincentra, bouwmarkten en wegrestaurants in Amsterdam en wijde omgeving. Waarschijnlijk moeten ook inbraken elders in het land aan de bende worden toegerekend.

Monday, October 01, 2007

The beginning of the end: blocking payments for gambling...

Quite interesting both the US officials (Treasury and Fed) see proposed rule here and the Dutch government seek to stop 'unlawful betting practices' by demanding the banks that execute the payments to block those.

Well, if we go down this road and allow our governments to dictate which payments which customers may send/acccept (and instruct our banks to act accordingly), we may as well make the Treasuries our single national payment institution. This is what in my view will happen.

First the rules will be targeted to situations to which no one can protest: companies that sell child porn. This will get the first round of regulation off the ground.

Then the question will be: can we also stop payments to/from betting companies? Which is not so easy: in the Netherlands all non-Dutch government agreed betting (from abroad) is viewed as illegal. But that is a political judgment call, stemming from the fract that our government earns money from some of those companies that it has provided a betting license with. With a little luck, you also get this second round of rules agreed.

Third, we will see how it's not the national government prescribing to block payments to/from specific companies/customers, but local police officers or DA's. And they'll also be allowed to automatically fine the users that try to make payments to those companies that are considered blacklisted. Because those users are doing something illegal too....

Now, while this last scenario appears politically impossible now, it won't be once we're used to the first two interventions.

It is quite bluntly a disgrace that politicians and policymakers so improperly and so recklessly invade our privacy and dictate our and the banks' behaviour. If the bottom line is that police officials are not sufficiently equipped to catch crooks... fine, provide them with more resources. But don't try short-cutting it with using tools/means that will only end up backfiring at some point in time.

Or as Kant would say it, put yourself in the position of the other and question yourself once again if the proposed ruling is fair to all involved...