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Big Banks Will Vie For Your Attention With Cardless ATMs and VR

tedlistens writes In the year that bitcoin began to grow up and Apple Pay was born—and massive cyberattacks—the country's largest financial institutions want you to imagine themselves as incubators. Three of the big banks opened up innovation labs to imagine what's next in mobile banking; some are starting their own accelerators. Meanwhile, the latest research estimates that U.S. mobile payments, currently at $3.7 billion, will grow to $142 billion within five years. Now an industry not exactly known for speed is approaching 2015 with an ethos that sounds more Silicon Valley than Wall Street, touting visions of fridges that shop for you, Google Glass and Oculus Rifts, and the kind of futuristic security they hope will inspire consumers to trust them and their technology in the first place. I like that both a local book shop, and the coffeehouse nearest my house, have bitcoin kiosks.

9 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Error by jamesl · · Score: 2

    The post says, " ... the latest research estimates that U.S. mobile payments, currently at $3.7 billion, will grow to $142 billion within five years."

    The Forrester research piece linked says, in fact ...
    Over the next five years, US mobile payments will grow from $52 billion in 2014 to $142 billion by 2019 with both national brands and local merchants.

  2. Re: an industry not exactly known for speed by alex67500 · · Score: 2

    For the countries I've experienced, France is very slow (2-3 days) whilst the UK is 2 hours (usually instant) -- the regulator imposed it with fines if the payments are transferred late.

    Enough public pressure on your representatives might do the trick...

  3. Re:Hmm by TheCarp · · Score: 2

    Except without the ability to designate a group to invent money out of thin air by lending it to your friend's wives with no-recourse loans. I mean, you can still do that but, you have to actually get the bitcoins first before you can give out those no-recourse loans and, in the end, only you lose out when they don't pay you back, since you had to actually have the bitcoins to lend out in the first place.

    But other than that, yup exactly like it.

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  4. Re: an industry not exactly known for speed by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Get a new bank. My transfers are available to me immediately.

    It depends a lot on where you live. In America, a money transfer from one bank to another can take days to clear. In China, I am able to do it in seconds.

  5. Re:an industry not exactly known for speed by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yet they were among the first to adopt computers back in the 1950s.

    Actually, that is the problem. Because they adopted computers so early, they are now stuck with slow legacy systems. It is similar to the situation with phone companies: America used to have the best in the world, because of investments in computers and automation. But today we have one of the worst telecom systems, because we are stuck with outdated systems, while other countries computerized with much newer technology.

  6. Re:Not known for speed? by colinwb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Who do you suppose were the first businesses to use computers?"

    Not the banks! Actually a British chain of tea shops! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Lyons_and_Co.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) The LEO I (Lyons Electronic Office I) was the first computer used for commercial business applications. Overseen by Oliver Standingford, Raymond Thompson of J. Lyons and Co.and and David Caminer, modelled closely on the Cambridge EDSAC. LEO I ran its first business application in 1951. In 1954 Lyons formed LEO Computers Ltd to market LEO I and its successors LEO II and LEO III to other companies. LEO Computers eventually became part of English Electric Company (EELM) and then International Computers Limited (ICL) and ultimately Fujitsu. LEO series computers were still in use until 1981.

    One of the LEO III's quirkier features was a loudspeaker connected to the central processor which enabled operators to tell whether a program was looping by the distinctive sound it made.

    http://www.leo-computers.org.uk/ In 1951 the LEO I computer was operational and ran the world's first regular routine office computer job.

  7. Re: an industry not exactly known for speed by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Get a new bank. My transfers are available to me immediately.

    It depends a lot on where you live. In America, a money transfer from one bank to another can take days to clear. In China, I am able to do it in seconds.

    In reality, the transfer probably clears immediately, but American banks are only required by law to make the funds available within a specific number of days, so they hold that money - probably to their financial benefit.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  8. Re: an industry not exactly known for speed by tompaulco · · Score: 2

    It takes days for transfers to go through. It's like going to a pharmacy and waiting a hour for some monkey to put 30 pills into a bottle.

    No, it takes seconds for transfers to go through. It takes days for them to release the funds to you while they sit on the money and make interest.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  9. Re:an industry not exactly known for speed by bws111 · · Score: 2

    How did this get modded 'insightful'? It appears the mods, like the poster, know nothing about computing. Banks are not using 'slow legacy systems'. The only thing 'legacy' about them is that they CAN (but do not NEED to) run old programs. Banks (large ones anyway) are running the most advanced hardware out there.