Episode 8 - 12th October 2015

Good morning, welcome to Payments Monitor, my name is Faisal Khan, today is the 12th of October 2015, happy thanksgiving to all those listening in from Canada, to the rest, its Monday! Anyhow, here is what is trending today:

TOP STORIES

Dell agrees to buy EMC for US$ 67 Billion – the largest tech deal ever. Dell announced a few hours ago its intention to buy the corporate giant for software, storage and security as part of Dell’s transformation from the consumer PC business to an IT solutions provider for companies.

SnapSwan, a cryptocurrency gateway that used to trade Ripple’s XRPs (without license I might add) was granted a license to provide services as a regulation Payment Institution (by Luxembourg). SnapSwan will now offer payments, remittances and currency exchange services in Europe..

UK’s VocaLink, the company behind UK’s Faster Payments has reason to celebrate. Thailand signed a deal with VovaLink for instant mobile payments. This is a big win for VocaLink which is also the front-end contender in countries like Singapore and Australia. The deal, announced at Sibos (Singapore today) is signed between VocaLink and Thailand’s interbank payment network: National ITMX. A point worth mentioning, this is a Letter of Intent that will explore the potential development of a real-time mobile payments system in Thailand.

Oil rose slightly after Kuwait’s oil minister said OPEC forecasts more demand for oil next year, in face of removal of high-cost producers, who eventually would be removed from the production count, thus tightening up the global fuel balance.

After the recent spate of hacking attacks (or disclosures – however you want to look at it), cyber insurance premiums have rocketed. Deductibles are being raised significantly and coverage caps are now being placed to US$ 100 Million by many insurance companies. Renewals have also been made prohibitively expensive. Don’t be expecting any sympathy from the insurance industry anytime soon.

BLOG OPINION

First there was the 2008 financial crisis. Then the European debt crisis (which still isn’t over by the way), now Goldman Sachs is saying, get ready for the third wave of financial crisis. Who does it affect? Emerging Markets, or EM-Wave as it is called. Now usually when an investment bank like Goldman Sachs lets this horse out in the open, the key word to understand is, losses have already been taken.

ONE LAST WORD…

Disruption it seems is difficult to accept. I bet at one point in time the buggy-whip manufacturers were up in arms over the introduction of something called the horseless carriage, i.e. the automobile. The same is being shown by cities and countries all over the world, who are trying to place clogs in the machinery, especially for the transportation sector, i.e. Uber and its fellow clones. After Paris, Australia has now cited it will block all taxi-hailing apps like Uber, iHail, etc. in Australia. It is only a matter of time when the consumers will put pressure on their local legislators to have such myopic decisions reversed.

That’s all for today, my name is Faisal Khan and you’ve been listening to the Payments Monitor.