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Canadian Banks Rushing To Offer Virtual Wallets
silentbrad writes with this quote from the Globe and Mail:"Canada's big banks are preparing to launch 'virtual wallets' as early as this fall that will allow consumers to digitally consolidate their credit and debit cards from any financial institution, and use them to make purchases online and through their cellphones at cash registers. It is being called the biggest change to the way consumers pay for goods in Canada in decades, and for the banks moving quickly into this space, the strategy is about keeping ownership of the vast and potentially lucrative stores of data that are involved in transactions. ... The majority of the banking sector is expected to follow suit in the next year or so, with each financial institution relying on the concept of 'aliases,' where a password lets consumers access their payment cards, but protects personal information from being passed to the merchant. ... Retailers can use the information contained in transactions, stripped of details that violate privacy laws, to tailor offerings or promotions to consumers. And the banks figure they can build a new business from that new world. Location data on phones can help neighborhood stores connect with customers in the area, while transaction data online can give insight into consumer habits and tastes."
yes, but what colo(u)r will these virtual wallets be?
This is great news. Now I no longer have to wait to lose my physical wallet to go through the agony of canceling and replacing credit cards. It can be lost more efficiently in the cloud.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
FTFA:
Retailers can use the information contained in transactions, stripped of details that violate privacy laws, to tailor offerings or promotions to consumers. And the banks figure they can build a new business from that new world. Location data on phones can help neighbourhood stores connect with customers in the area, while transaction data online can give insight into consumer habits and tastes.
The title of the article should read:
"Canadian banks rushing to offer your private buying history to the highest bidder"
Why doesn't society care about privacy anymore?
1) I do not want every store I shop at to have my name and phone number.
2) I do not want my bank to have a full list of where and when I bought stuff, how much I spent and, possibly, what exactly I bought.
3) I don't want stores to keep tabs on what I buy.
4) I don't want my virtual wallet to be compromised should I somehow lose my phone.
Sorry, but you should be happy enough that I shop at your store. I do not owe you to let you provide me with advertisements.
I'll pass until privacy is taken seriously.
Did anyone else read the entire summary and still have no idea WTF it's talking about? Something to do with aliasing personal information to merchants... so they can target advertising... when the merchant has all the customer's personal data out of necessity anyway...?
Canadians already primarily use a card system called Interac to make most purchases; granted, it's been a while since I lived in Canada but even three years ago it was very rare for me to make a cash purchase.
Reading TFA it seems like it's talking about cell phone wireless payments, and banks selling your demographic information to retailers. Frankly, if my bank did that, I'd opt out of it immediately, and potentially change banks if they didn't allow the opt-out. This suggests to me that within five years there will be no bank that will allow opting-out unless it's protected by law.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The whole point of Paypal was you don't have to give your cc number to the vendor; it'll stay with Paypal.
But people found out Paypal's not necessarily always your pal.
Anyway, if these banks are offering this service, would there remain a reason for Paypal?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
We're approaching a point where full records (and analysis) of consumer habits will be available from multiple sources. From how we find what we buy (google, etc), the stores themselves (from amazon and fresh direct to local grocery stores and pharmacies) down to how we pay (banks and credit cards). While there is some movement towards "Do Not Track", it is only for that very first step. What we need is a "Do Not Track" option that extends beyond browsing on the web, and allows us to purchase goods without giving companies a complete record of everything we do.
canada will lead here, because you need a government entity to dictate the terms of something like a virtual wallet
private market forces do not necessarily lead to advancement, because there is no natural market that is not dominated and suppressed by it's largest players. for example: mastercard and visa will stymie google's and apple's virtual wallet efforts out of jealousy and wanting to monopolize that action themselves
and then we will have the crackpots WHARRGARBLing about virtual currency and paranoid schizophrenic fantasies of world domination, and the crackpots will be featured on faux news, because it serves the entrenched corporate interest's agenda to keep the public enthralled, confused, and propagandized about anything better than the world they want to lock them into where their rent seeking monopolistic and oligopolistic practices go unchallenged
so: only evil "socialist" countries deserve things like commonsense healthcare financing and technological progress, and my country continues it's slow circling of the toilet, as corporate rent seeking parasites strangle my government, and various morons conclude the solution is less government regulation on the stranglers
canada: can new york state join your union? please?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You need to read up on Stephen Harper and his plans for world domination.
You go to the store and buy some dog shampoo. The state is immediately alerted and it is determined that you do not show ownership for a dog. You will be investigated for failing to properly license your dog. This is how you keep a society safe from terrorists. Enjoy.
And by introducing self-destructing plastic currency we won't have a choice...
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/12/new-plastic-bills-reportedly-melting-in-summer-heat/
They already tried this in the USA with the stupid nearfield credit cards. it was an epic failure. Paypal has tried it several times and failed and is on their next failure with this technology.
People DO NOT WANT to have loosey Goosey access to their money. It is why you dont see RFID on all your groceries and a push and pay register at Walmart... if they could lay off almost all the cashiers forever they would.
Good luck canada, but Mastercard could not get enough banks and people to use their atempt, I think you will have about the same chance.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Do the carrier, the phone manufacturer and the many app developers all have access to our phones? Is this access in many cases an effective back door? Is so, this seems like bad place store money or access to money.
All my cards and such in one place.
Much easier for me to just wave my phone or whatever and it gets deducted. Just hope I choose the right 'card'.
And much, MUCH easier for the crooks to steal one thing, instead of going after each of my accounts one at time. One-stop shopping for them.
No, I'm not cynical, much.
Progress.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Banks rushing headlong into some whiz-bang, poorly understood, but technology-based solution (product) for a problem that doesn't exist, but surely will make them a lot of money, without first fully considering or mitigating the obvious potential risks. Film at 11.
Is this not the history of the banking sector for at least a generation?
sure in the technical sense most harem girls are wearing pants but its not like 1 they conceal anything at all 2 they wont come off if you so much as stare at them hard
in similar fashion the "security" for this will work
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
i am so not doing this. at least not until i can have my phone permanently attached at the wrist a la pipboy. too risky. your phone gets stolen, which costs $$$, plus access to banking and credit cards??? not to mention the inevitable "whoops your personal banking info was exposed on the internet, sorry!" that will happen to thousands of people when the banks get hacked, or they goof, or your phone gets some kind of malware that lifts that info... NO THANKS BANKS.
What's the worst that could happen? There is no way that idea could wreak havoc to you finances if something goes wrong. Actually forget the "if" and replace it "once". One basket was not a good idea a few hundred years ago when carrying eggs and still isn't.
I'm curious to hear why, what are your examples?
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
Now I'll never get rid of that Canadian Tire money. It'll sit in my sock drawer for all eternity.
I see no evidence that your experience is typical. Cash is widely used, as are credit cards. We are far from being a cashless society. I only use Interac a few times a year. Interac has been hit with fraud sprees by criminals using tampered skimmers. Unlike with credit cards, where banks impose such losses on merchants, banks often fail to refund the money.
"If a consumer walks into Home Depot today and pays with cash. Home Depot has no idea who that customer is, how many times they've been in the store and what they've actually purchased," said Darrell MacMullin, managing director at PayPal Canada.
That's precisely why I use cash much of the time. I'd rather not have every retailer in the country tracking my every purchase.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I am against concepts that require transactions to be interdependent as vulnerabilities carry more severe penalties. For example a debit card can be locked to protect customers and takes a few days to unlock. Imagine if all your debit cards, your credit cards and even access to credit were suddenly shut off for ten days or worse. Or imagine a hacker being able to completely drain all your financial resources. Keeping it safe and keeping it simple do have a relationship.
Given the frequency that anything online gets hacked these days, you would have to be really really naive to trust every one of your credit cards to a service that sounds like a potential one-stop shop for identity thieves. I mean, come on, has the world grown so lazy that manual entry of payment info when making purchases online is considered difficult?
..not for convenience, but because our new "paper" currency is made of plastic, http://www.google.ca/search?q=canadian+plastic+money , AND WE ALL HATE IT!
It melts together in only moderately high heat, they are so thin and staticy that they easily stick together (making it too easy to hand over 2 or 3 bills instead of just one) and it just plain DOES NOT FEEL NICE. I call conspiracy on this one.
Just another way of saying powerless. He who controls the bits controls how much money you 'actually' have... and how you 'actually' voted.
A paper trail really is right up there as a facet of a truly free and open society; we casually abandon it at our peril.
Apparently, when their fancy new plastic bills get hot, they shrivel up like (non-Canadian) bacon. Oh, AGW irony, Hr. Harper.
I only see benefits for the banks in this scheme.
First, they will now have access to a crapload more data about people's shopping habits that they can mine and sell.
Second, service charges. Hey now instead of paying for the privilege of using your debit card to Bank A, you can also pay a service charge on top of that to Bank B who is providing this digital wallet.
Zero benefit for the customer.
1) I already carry a physical wallet. I keep my cards in it and they are always with me -- digital wallet provides no benefit over this.
2) If I lose my physical wallet, I call and cancel my cards. With a digital wallet if I lose my cell phone I call and cancel my cards and my phone. -- again, no benefit.
3) I'll have to pay more service charges to the banks for this "service". Banks in Canada nickel and dime us to death already and they will not offer this service for free. -- No benefit.
that doesn't respect your freedom respects neither your privacy, nor your security nor, ultimately, your personal safety.
I love how so many people commenting have no idea how banking works in canada. First off, almost everyone uses interac debit -- every bank in Canada has the same thing. Email money transfers are the norm here - almost every bank supports it (small credit unions are just coming online with it now) Fraud departments at our credit card companies are awesome. We do have RFID based cards, but transactions are limited for most to $50 (for most people -- you can have it raised).
However, if its a fraudulent transaction its removed -- Banks realize there can be potential issues to RFID as such, the first time I actually used my card for an RFID transaction, I recieved a call that night from card security making sure it was me.
Also re: lack of RFID -- maybe in the USA. However, in canada, you can use your RFID card pretty much anywhere -- including walmart
this new project isnt really anything new - it's basically going to be like paypal.. which seems dumb, but I guess the banks want in on it.. ie) you can put money into your 'virtual wallet' from multiple sources.
Using credit cards gives your information to foreign corporations (USA) who process all this information in the USA and naturally their government has access to all of it. Don't expect it to go well, Russia tried to at least have the data processed within their nation and lost that fight.
Canada is more likely to have standards develop and government (post Harper) properly regulate it; plus they do have credit unions... Wasn't Canada the nation who's government was looking into providing official electronic money?
Banks will at some point make this cheap or free to compete against credit cards etc. Then as soon as possible they will wring every dime from you as legally possible.
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