I was watching a presentation by Jan Chipchase that was given at TED. This talk was about how we interact with technology, specifically what happens when people share cells phones, an object that is actually designed for personal use. In describing how kiosks are popping up on the streets of Africa with little more than a mobile phone and a sign advertising call rates, he outlines an ingenious method of money transfer.
Credit cards have often added value and protection to the consumer by way of zero liability features for fraudulent card use and insurance on items purchased using a credit card. Could a payment system provide consumers protection from the myriad End User License Agreements (EULA’s) seller’s demand we accept (especially in the internet age where we typically check the “I Agree” box without actually reading the agreement or terms of service which may run on for thousands of words)?
Read more »
What I want is a financial services mash-up. I want a single online application that combines all of my financial services products, whether from the same or different providers. Consider an on-line banking website where you view transactions and seamlessly transfer money between your savings account, line of credit, your mortgage and credit cards, with access to a consolidated summary of all of your finances - even though all of these products are all provided by different banks and vendors.
Read more »
BillMonk announced the release of a new feature they call debt shuffling. It’s like net settlement for a group of people (e.g. a social or person to person network of friends). Makes one wonder why the concept of net settlement cannot be implemented at the individual business and person level.
Read more »
I wonder if payment platforms that rely on biometrics, such as Pay by Touch, are susceptible to a functioning dummy finger print. For example, the German computer magazine c’t shows how such a dummy can be created with home made tools. Is there a better biometric for payments? How about vein patterns?
Read more »
Wow this didn’t take long - social finance site Buxfer has added peer to peer payments to its list of features by using Amazon’s new Flexible Payments Service (FPS). Hmmm, I wonder if they had access to some early Beta’s??? 
…I suppose it is only fitting that a first class application of Amazon’s FPS would be implemented at Internet speed.
Read more »
As anticipated, Amazon has launched its new payment service. Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS) is being promoted by Amazon as being the “first payments service designed from the ground up specifically for developers”. It is a set of web services built on top of Amazon’s reliable and scalable payment infrastructure.
Read more »
Techcrunch is predicting a launch announcement by Amazon this week or next of a new web service around payments. If you had been following payments and IT related internet job boards, you may have been able to see this coming. For a couple months I have been wondering what “Project Iris” at Amazon was all about.
Read more »
Dave Birch at the excellent Digital Money Forum discusses how at a time in the not so distant past Americans reverted to Barter. In fact with no real money around in the Great Depression, people started to print their own money, called “scrip”.
Read more »
Payments are big business. Total industry revenues are over $200 Billion, almost double the revenues of the entire airline industry. Payments Watch provides insight and analysis on payments industry news from around the world.
more about »
