As banks increasingly turn to biometrics to secure ATM transactions, Kaspersky Lab is warning that crooks are already selling skimming devices that they claim can steal fingerprints. Unfortunately, nothing less was to be expected. And that even works without the use of severed body parts… Read the full report at FinExtra.
Peter Bayley, EVP Risk Management at Visa, asked this question on Politico. This is about the plans of the EU Commission to enforce strong user authentication for payments transactions with PSD 2. Its a great read and shows good alternative paths, which do not cause frustration and additional steps for the consumer. While this is sponsored content (and I guess it is sponsored by Visa), I still believe it is very relevant in the discussion.
I personally have ambivalent feelings when it comes to Blockchain technology and it´s use cases. There are many reasons to consider it a hype and to believe that it may be beneficial for some niche aspects but is not a solution for the global transaction backends. Also there are very valid questions around crypto currencies and their relevance.
One thing for sure is clear: Both started a discussion and that alone is good and healthy. But the hype turns me off, really.
Now there was a good read in American Banker with the head-line „Does Blockchain Tech Solve Security Problems Or Cause New Ones?“. The article is worth reading. Nailed it.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, just released ALL of its training classes for the general public and for free. Thats a brilliant move – thank you MIT! Also it will be a tool to make knowledge more democratic. Anywhere, no matter what the budget is. Thumbs up from me for that. This cannot be valued enough.
You can access the training courses here. Get going. 🙂
I admit, I have adopted this headline – because I could not possibly come up with a better one. Great job, Payments Source! They published an article which reflects on a phenomenon which has greatly annoyed me some 15 years ago or so – actually I never got it, to be frank. But now, the phenomenon is back and finally I DO get it. Just in a much different sense than a stupid electronic toy that you „pay attention to“, apparently when you lack any other social interaction. 🙂
Today Smombies follow their phones and not seldom are a true traffic hazard – now being steered by an app called Pokemon Go. First of all the good news: You have to move your body to play this app so give it some benefit for fighting obesity. But: you have to stare at your screen constantly which will probably boost the sale of power banks as well as it is in fact a traffic hazard. Anyway, the key thing it does is to make you search – or hunt for – Pokemon, epically ugly manga pieces of crap which you can do whatever with. This treasure hunt is what gets folks on the hook with it.
So why not place the ugly critter in a store, next to the items you want to sell? Not sure this is actually happening but Payment Source does have a point. This might be what all those loyalty apps failed about for so many years – and if thats true the current boot in market valuation for Nintendo is well deserved. Highly interesting and they got ME on the hook with it (while I refrain from playing Pokemon Go). Read for yourself here.
Addition (actually not sure it works) there was this Video on Facebook (in German) which brings back some (ugly) memory. 🙂