FTX could be ‘game over’ for Central Bank Digital Currency, and for other dominos: Fintech, Open Banking, the Great Re-set et al

As first published by IREF on www.irefeurope.org as an Online Article on 23rd November 2022:

Published on 2 December 2022

Introduction

Up until recently the proponents of the cluster of financial developments around the Great Re-Set, Decentralized Finance, Central Bank Digital Currency, Financial Inclusion, Fintech, Open Banking et al have had things very much their own way: forming […]

FTX shines a light on crypto people – do we want them replacing our UK cash with their digital currency?

Published on 21 November 2022

Sir Jon Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of Financial Stability, Bank of England, sees no contradiction between the rampant instability on Planet Cryptocurrency and the Bank’s plans to replace our cash with its own UK version of a cryptocurrency. This is the message today from the most senior person responsible for the stability […]

‘CAPTURE’ – a major new paper on the committees considering a UK Central Bank Digital Currency

Published on 7 November 2022

UK payments have, over the last ten years, become increasingly digital and become the domain of a technocratic elite, working in tandem with Big Tech and the major payment card brands.

The UK’s ‘digital payments journey’ thus far has left an amount of damaging debris on the road behind it: Authorized Push […]

ISO20022 – The Great Leap Sideways

Published on 13 October 2022

The payment industry’s migration to the ISO20022 XML data format promises much, or rather the list of promises is long and the same as it has been for a long time, and is very promising: richer data, easier data mining, easier compliance-checking and harmonization (aka everyone else is going to use […]

The Payment Systems Regulator’s PS22/2 Card-acquiring market remedies: final decision = surrender

Published on 6 October 2022

On 6th October 2022 the PSR published its Final Decisions on its major and multi-year ‘work’ on the costs of accepting card payments for merchants. Costs, in this case, focuses on the service fees paid by a merchant to its appointed merchant acquirer. The all-in costs include the deductions-from-face-value, which the […]

Apparatus for UK’s financial management is dead in the water

Blog published on 18 August 2022 based on an article published on www.facts4eu.org on 12 August 2022

A major change in the financial management of the UK is needed. The current upsurge in inflation may have been triggered by energy prices, but the seedbed for it has been in the creation since the Global Financial Crisis […]

Architect of Test and Trace turns to reorganising UK’s payment systems

This article as it appeared on CommentCentral on 4 August 2021

Published on 4 August 2021

A certain David Pitt, fresh from his triumphs as Chief Operating Officer of Test and Trace, has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Pay.UK, the company responsible for the UK’s main payment systems.

This is not a joke, although the timing […]

UK’s New Payments Architecture now to be a bungalow

Title page of PSR’s latest emission on the scope and tendering process for NPA

Published on 30 July 2021

What started out as a Temple of Solomon to revolutionise the UK’s payment systems will now be reduced to a more manageable bungalow-sized development. Multiple layers collapse down to one.

The
UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), who started this show […]

Comparison table of UK Finance Report – “Future-ready payments 2030: a dynamic, purposeful and united agenda for the UK”, February 2021

UK Finance’s report on the future of UK payments

Published on 9 February 2021

We have compiled a comparison table between the plans for UK payments as foreseen by:

UK Finance’s “Future-ready payments 2030: a dynamic, purposeful and united agenda for the UK”, of February 2021; The Payment Strategy Forum’s “A Payments Strategy for the 21st century: putting […]