Here are some slides and a video lecture (35 mins). The example is from the case we did earlier on electric vehicles.
Here are some articles on Bitcoin and Blockchain/DLT
Some basic stats on India ....
“only about 15 percent of that population report ever having used a bank account in their entire lives.”
"there are 155,000 bank branches in that nation, but 600,000 towns and cities" CEO of MobileonMoney
"there are currently fewer than 20 cash machines for every 100,000 adults in India"The story basically is about the cost of POS terminals (think of the MasterCard/Nigeria story). These are needed for card-based payments (traditional & NFC).
"there are about 57.7 million merchants in India but only 1.5 million digital payment acceptance locations" PYMNTS.com
One way to avoid POS costs is to take advantage of phones (I am assuming smartphones - or at least any phone which can take a picture/scan).
So the merchant has a QR code (printed on a piece of paper say) with a merchant ID - the customer scans the QR code and initiates a push payment on their phone using Visa/MasterCard/RuPay debit/credit. So maybe the country will skip plastic cards altogether? And of course this only works for with with bank accounts. More here.
Here is an article from The New Yorker on Sweden.
Look like SWIFT is feeling the heat from Blockchain. Here is a description of their GPII upgrade for cross-border interbank transfers. Richer messages and end-to-end tracking.
It appears to be very difficult to a cost-benefit analysis of faster payments:
"Although we cannot provide monetary estimates of the benefits of the U.K. FPS, the total costs of the new system relative to the U.K. population (63 million in 2012) suggests that the value of benefits per individual per year need not be large to give FPS a positive net present value." Green et.al. FRB Boston
More so because it is difficult to calculate possible external benefits to non-bank payment providers who can hook up to faster payments (at least in the UK there is a way for them to do so).
Here is an example from Transferwise which claims to be the first Fintech company to hook up to the UK Faster Payments Scheme.
Here is a recent speech by Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. Nice pictures of the value chain and potential risks.
What do Uber drivers and strippers have in common?
And Susan Fowler's blog on her year at Uber ... and the NYT story ... and then ... this guy
And an argument with an Uber driver.
We talked about ClearXchange a bank-led payments initiative. Now 19 of them have decided to come up with a mobile app to compete with Venmo ... here on Bloomberg
Venmo is owned by PayPal and is a mobile wallet ... problem is cashing out takes days. As well there appear to be some security, fraud and consumer protection issues according to Time.
Venmo is trying to counter this by speaking with card networks - problem is cards are costly due to interchange.
Many countries are using polymer currency. The Bank of England recently issued polymer 5 pound bills (with plans for 10s and 20s).
Doug Maw (a vegetarian) started a campaign on change.org regarding the small amount of tallow in the banknotes.
The inventor of the notes thought the campaign was "stupid" since the amount was trivial and similar amounts of tallow could also be found in soap and candles.
To it's credit, the Bank of England listened and met with Mr. Maw, and decided not to withdraw the 5 and 10 pound bills, but maybe the 20s will be vegetarian.