Category: Uncategorized

Near Term Impacts of Distributed Ledger Technology to Financial Services – Chain of Trust

While public blockchains provide disruptive improvements to transparency and speed, the operation of modern finance depends on a network of trusted participants. This trust network operates beyond a given transaction, as each participant has a stake in efficient market operation they perform many formal and informal roles in compliance and continuously assess the ability of counterparties to assume risk

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Continuation of last week’s blog on “binding” and minting of tokens. 

I’m currently immersed in DeFi, DAOs, Blockchain, …etc. Selected readings are at the end of this blog. Keeping Current in DeFi/DLT is almost impossible. I certainly invite comments and corrections to anything I’ve written below. While I have teams building services in this area, my perspective is biased. My purpose in writing is to stimulate discussion so don’t be shy in the comments, I welcome disagreement and discussion. 

Topic today: What impacts will the $50B invested in FinTech/DLT/Crypto have on existing financial services in next 5-10 yrs? What is the summary CEO/Investor View?

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Google/TCH Launch – Banks Hire New Network CEO

Something is launching next week (rumor 8/23) with Google, TCH and at least 4 banks. The banks have just hired a new CEO to run it with a “network background”.

© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.

September 7 BEFORE YOU READ. This blog is dated. 3 key updates

  1. The launch was a very small TCH RTP effort. Forbes Article on Launch of Pay by Bank using TCH. Google’s role seems to be limited to hosting servers in the Google Cloud. This was NOT the big announcement I thought was coming. It looks like the TCH tokens in Google Wallet will be a few more months away.
  2. TCH’s primary focus this year is an eCom wallet focused on the Secure Remote Commerce Model (see blog)
  3. Neither Apple nor Google are involved in any of these activities, yet Google is working to pilot both FedNow and TCH RTP to leverage their India UPI success.

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Something is launching next week (rumor 8/23 pilot) with Google, TCH and at least 4 banks. The banks have just hired a new CEO to run it with a “network background”. This is likely a new consortium, and we will see changes in where the assets of TCH, Akoya and Early Warning line up. This CEO will be tasked with creating a new network to “compete with ApplePay” as the premier mobile payment platform.

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TCH Tokens in eCom SRC Model

TCH tokens will be in Apple/Google in next 6 months with Request for Payment as the primary scheme

Part 1 – Current US Routing Rules

© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.

IMPORTANT – Update September 7 BEFORE YOU READ. This blog is dated. 3 key updates:

Why should you read this? The top ~25 banks have been working on this for over 10 yrs and now Google and Apple are involved.

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Google – Real Time P2P – Rumor

Free Blog – Google will announce real-time payments in Google Wallet pilot with JPMC and at least 2 other banks this month

Summary

UPDATE – I no longer beleive P2P is focus, but rather Request for Payment and merchant integration. Blog forthcoming today.

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I have no idea what this looks like, so congrats to Google for keeping this locked down. The following is my best “guess” on a pilot, based upon:

  1. What Google has launched internationally (Tez) and GPay through India’s UPI (highly recommended read here)
  2. Changes/Focus Bill Ready put in place before his departure as new CEO of Pinterest. Remember Bill was CEO of Braintree (the most significant acquisition PayPal ever made).  Braintree enabled payment APIs for online and mobile merchants (among other things). 
  3. Prior to Bill, Google’s support and advice for FedNow  (see article)
  4. Understanding of what Banks want to accomplish (ex TCH tokens in mobile phones). 
  5. My short time in Google during the creation and launch of Google Wallet. Particularly the exec team’s desire for a global P2P service.
Continue reading “Google – Real Time P2P – Rumor”

BNPL Travel Example – Short Blog

Short blog today on an example BNPL opportunity and the differences between a consumer BNPL solution like Apple Pay Later and Merchant integrated solutions from providers such as Affirm (or SQ/Afterpay see Three Flavors of BNPL).  Today Air Travel and Vacation packages are the focus.

Short blog today on an example BNPL opportunity and the differences between a consumer BNPL solution like Apple Pay Later and Merchant integrated solutions from providers such as Affirm (or SQ/Afterpay see Three Flavors of BNPL).  Today Air Travel and Vacation packages are the focus.

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Consumer Data Bureau?

The US, Middle East and a few other corners of the world remain the data wild west. Europe’s GDPR brought a global model for privacy that is being replicated in most other geographies. But where is the clearinghouse of permissions? The “one time” access to consumer information based upon online banking credentials has mophed into an “always on” inquiry for unspecified uses. 

Short blog today as opposed to the 9 page monster in identity and attribution Friday.  Today I’m providing my thoughts on what a consumer data bureau would look like.  Summary: Banks have a unique opportunity to create a consumer data bureau and be the key “switch” for regulated and permissioned data. Will they seize it?

Per blog yesterday, everyone has a partial view of you based upon their observations and what you trust them to hold (see Payments and Observer Effect). The more often you interact with a single entity, the more they learn about you. Today Google and Amazon know you much better than your bank. Any unique insights that a bank may have is limited by their ability to take part in that transaction. Thus entities, with the ability to initiate transactions, have the most control (summary of Identity will Define Future of Trust Blog).

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Start Ups in a Downturn: Key Actions

Thought I would share the recommendations I’m making to the companies I advise. To be clear we aren’t in a downturn yet, but you may want to consider some actions today. A start-up is like a small boat on the ocean: the highs are higher and the lows are lower (and you feel it in between). We are in for some rough weather and it’s important to prepare for the storm and particularly new lows that have never been experienced by anyone in your organization. 

Open to your thoughts here. Sorry for typos..

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Google Wallet Re-Launch

I was a small part of the initial Google Wallet launch in 2011 and have been a hopeful champion for last 11 yrs (20+blogs). I’m a big fan of the strategy here, a much bigger platform/enablement strategy than the previous flex/p2p effort.  

Last week we saw a major relaunch of Google Wallet at Google I/O. See

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