innovation Archives - Page 2 of 5

Why Shared Ledger Technology won’t free us from human fallibility

In my previous post, I discussed Bitcoin’s desire to remove trust from the payments process. I now want to look at the nature of financial trust: What does it mean to say we “trust” a third party? Is trust of…

We need to talk about Bitcoin’s trust issues

I recently tackled Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin text, which has mythical status amongst devotees of shared ledger technology. It is a paragon of clarity on what Bitcoin is really all about. According to its spiritual father, the purpose of Bitcoin…

Perspectives on the Australian Payments Plan

Last month’s release of the Australian Payments Plan (APP) signals big changes for the Australian economy – but what does it actually mean? Watch: Mark Birrell, Chair of the Australian Payments Council, explains what the Australian Payments Plan is and…

Cloudsurfing and payments

Many in our industry are watching in fascination as the United States inches towards a real-time payments solution. There are three recent developments: the Fed’s Faster payments task force has defined effectiveness criteria for a new payments system, NACHA has received the Fed’s approval for its same day ACH rule, and most interestingly, The Clearing House – the high value clearing network for the larger banks – has announced a letter of intent with Vocalink to develop a new real-time system. Judging by the Chicago Payments Symposium hosted by the Chicago Fed last month, there is still nothing like consensus on the “right” outcome, and the US is still some years from new mainstream payments services that are “cloud ready”.

Australia providing ideas to help bring digital payments to the poor

Does Australia’s New Payments Platform hold some lessons for developing countries looking to design their own digital payments system? The Level One Project Guide, released earlier this year by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, would suggest so. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the world’s most influential NGOs. It supports numerous initiatives, primarily aimed at health and economic development in developing countries. An area of interest for the Foundation has been financial inclusion, with a particular focus on how new digital technologies, such as mobile phones, can be used to provide low cost and accessible payment services to the poor.