Peer to peer (P2P) payment has attracted many players over the years since it was identified as representing a large number of transactions where cash is still preponderant. However, P2P payments still face a business model issue. There are only two options: either the payer is explicitly paying a transaction fee, as is the case with Paypal or with Mobile Money systems, or the system is presented as free for both the payer and the payee, and so far, no satisfactory business model has been found. For years, the GAFAM have tried to enter this field. Facebook is maybe the most active with attempts to turn Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp into payment applications. However, even if the business c
Never in history has a technology been abandoned because it was too dangerous or too lethal: chemical warfare, nuclear bombs and bacteriologic weapons do exist. But there is always a will to regulate their use. With recent decisions by technology giants Amazon, IBM and Microsoft, are we living a pivotal moment in the history of facial recognition technology? A few days ago, Amazon announced a one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition, its facial recognition software. The moratorium comes after critics and racial justice groups repeated calls to Amazon to stop providing police and immigration officials with tools that can be used to target people based on race. Amazon’s Rekognition is
A while after Apple announced its Apple Card, Google its Google Card and Huawei its Huawei Card, Samsung is now coming up with its “Samsung Money by SoFi,” a debit card solution developed jointly with SoFi, a US-based Fintech company, and bearing the MasterCard logo. “Samsung Money” is presented as a mobile-first cash management solution, accessible through Samsung Pay, and coming with physical and virtual cards, issued by MasterCard. The physical debit card will not display the card number, expiration date, or CVC, that will have to be found in the Samsung Pay app, protected by biometric or PIN authentication. In the US, users of Samsung Pay on Samsung Galaxy devices will have access to the
Biometrics authentication are increasingly present in our lives. While biometrics were at first essentially dedicated to access control, they play an increasing role in payment: we are all accustomed now to fingerprints or face recognition for payments. Google now goes a step further, building upon the built-in capabilities of Google Assistant. The device already included voice authentication used mainly to unlock it. Now, Google adds “Confirm with Voice Match,” a function that uses voice recognition to authenticate users for payments. The company says they have improved the accuracy of their voice recognition routines thanks to longer sentences analysis. For the time being, the feature, whi
