Of Special Interest
Filters
- Newslink Trends-The Global Strategic Perspective
- Juniper Research says digital wallet users to exceed 4.4 billion by 2025, as mobile drives digital payments’ revolution
- Criminals exploit COVID-19 pandemic with rise in scams targeting victims online
- Equifax says Open Banking proving pivotal to pandemic lending
- Consumer confidence in banks, credit card providers and investments remain stable as demand supercharges digital finance says Toluna research
- Mintos says Europeans are starting to embrace investing
- US banks see IT modernisation as a way to improve customer experience
- Risk mitigation in global trade depends on digitisation-Andrew Raymond, CEO, Bolero International comments
- Juniper Research new study says the volume of B2B payments facilitated by non-banks will exceed 53 billion in 2022, from a COVID-related low of 38 billion in 2020
- CMA issues fifth publication over 3 years of the service quality league table of personal and business current account providers
- Barclays says scammers take advantage of COVID-19, cashing in on nations’ uncertainty
- S&P Global report says financial market infrastructure sector's earnings likely to cool off In second half
- Global banking market capitalisation slumps by over 30% amid pandemic says Buyshares research
- Digital wallet spend in Europe & North America to increase by 40% in 2019, finds study
- Juniper forecasts mobile money transactions will exceed 200 billion by 2024
- Banks can save the world from climate change, says former UN climate chief
- Research by NatWest reveals gender divide over attitudes to saving
- Europe’s big bank problem: too much capital is trapped in the US, says Scope
- Later-Life lending market set to almost double in the next 10 years, finds report
- Barclays/Cebr report challenges nation to think differently about wealth
- Fifth of UK investors looking to debt investment, new research reveals
- Regtech will play a more important role in PSD2, says Mitek
- Banks turn to Fintech partnerships to improve customer experience, finds Fraedom
- New industry code to tackle fraud must deliver, says Which?
- New TTF report highlights loss of trust in financial services
- Arxan highlights financial app vulnerability epidemic
- SAS asks whether banks really need to choose between operations and innovation
- Which? raises alarm as almost 1,700 free ATMs become fee-charging
- Financial wellness affects half of peoples’ mental or physical health, finds report
- Study finds traditional financial institutions embrace Fintech disruption
- Grass is greener for environmentally friendly businesses, finds Barclays
- Prospective homeowners would consider a 40-year mortgage to escape renting, finds Santander
- Millennials’ needs are changing the face of banking industry, says new report
- FS is putting consumer data at risk by failing to protect mobile apps, says Arxan
- A lack of belief in their ability holds 28% women back in work, says Cambridge & Counties
- ‘Which?’ reveals Scotland has lost over a third of its bank branches in eight years
- Next downturn unlikely to be as bad as 2008, according to S&P
- FCA reveals findings from first cryptoassets consumer research
- US consumers favour single mobile app for banking and payments
- Banks suffering major IT shutdowns every day, ‘Which?’ reveals
- The US will be a key offshore centre in 2019, says GlobalData
- Debit industry changes markedly in 10 years of the Debit Issuer Study
- UK's ‘Big Five’ face ‘too big to compete’ as small challengers secure stellar returns
- Banks as vulnerable now as before crash, says new study
- Leverage ratio a constant conundrum for European and US banks, says SNL
27th January 2012
Digital cash for the digital wallet
Interview
Digital wallets / mobile wallets / electronic wallets received extensive coverage during the last year - but not electronic cash. Most electronic wallets under development or already launched use credit card, debit card, or prepaid card accounts, or just directly link to your bank account - they do not use electronic cash, or to give it a more precise definition, ‘ a digital representation of physical cash’. This is defined as an electronic item that can be transferred directly from one person’s wallet to another.
Banking Newslink recently spoke to Dr. Walter Ochynski, President of Treasury Management Services and involved in developing MySmartEMoney, a company planning to enter the electronic money market. The company currently has a proof of concept web site demonstrating how the system can work. Walter argued that a real electronic wallet should use electronic cash and have no type of bank account associated with it or fees for that matter. A much better alternative to these pseudo wallets is electronic cash. The electronic cash transaction does not have to go through networks that incur fees for the payer, payee, or both just like when you use physical cash. It can be used at POS at a retailer, for Person to Person (P2P) payment, via the internet or deposited at a bank. Also, it can be received from another person, from your employer, from your own account by internet, from an ATM, or even from a teller at a bank. All this is accomplished without ever having to create or link a new bank account.
Walter added, “Electronic cash is real. Just like how every dollar bill has a unique serial number so the FED knows it’s not counterfeit, electronic cash works the exact same way. Except now instead of printing the serial number on an expensive piece of paper, it is stored virtually on a server somewhere.”
The idea is not new. Bill Gates tried unsuccessfully to invest in Digicash, a pioneer in this field during the 1990s and planned to add the service to Windows 95. What is different now is that the technology exists to make it all work much better, faster, and more efficiently. Moreover, with the widespread use of mobile devices, the potential market for this service has grown exponentially larger.
Walter explained why banks would wish to become involved with such a service which may at first appear cannibalistic. First, there are the savings from less physical cash handling. ATMs could simply give out the necessary electronic cash instead of physical bills for example. However, the more significant and subtle point he went on to explain was:
“For banks, electronic cash would lead to an increase in profits. When you take cash out of the bank, it stops working for the bank. It generates no further profit. Electronic cash would generate further float until redemption for hard cash is demanded, this could mean that float would last forever or at least a very long time. The money never stops working for the bank as long as it remains electronic cash.”
In Walter’s view, the biggest winner would be the merchant, “If somebody pays with electronic cash there will be no fees like with credit or debit cards. Therefore merchants should promote payment with electronic cash to reduce their dependence on credit or debit card payments. Electronic cash would also make life easier for merchants because no change is required, as is the case when payment with hard cash is processed.”
The customer gains the advantage of a payment system that can be used in a wide range of situations at a fraction of current costs without needing details of the recipient’s bank or even the recipient having a bank account. In this day of ‘big brother’ and concerns over individual freedoms such transactions are private with no message sent via third parties. The very same privacy may at the same time be an issue for governments concerned with criminal and terrorist activity, though it is no greater problem than with regular, paper cash.
Would the central banks be the future issuers of electronic money to the banks who would then distribute the money, just like the current system we have for physical cash? That is certainly one scenario. Another is that banks would use electronic money for payments among themselves creating round-the–clock, real-time settlement in central bank money, which could make current systems obsolete.
Walter summarized the case for electronic money like this:
“To summarize: Banks will back the right electronic solution when it emerges, because it is more beneficial to them than to handle hard cash. Banks will gain float and they do not need armed guards to handle electronic cash. Electronic cash is more of an alternative to hard cash than to credit or debit cards. Cards offer consumers credit, the ability to spend beyond their means, transaction details, etc. Electronic cash will be promoted by merchants, who would save costs involved in handling hard cash and card fees when consumers would use electronic cash instead of cards. Governments and central banks would save a lot of money when consumers use more electronic cash and smart cards by not having to mint physical cash. Central banks would provide liquidity directly to banks instead of hauling and guarding hard cash. Hard cash is very expensive for central banks (printing and distribution costs). They would neither lose nor gain control if consumers would use electronic cash instead of hard cash.”
To experiment for yourself with electronic money you can visit the MySmartEMoney site at
http://www.mysmartemoney.com