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The BBC quotes the Times saying traders paid £2500 to £5000 per press conference plus a subscription fee.  Why did they pay if the audio feed contained nothing of value to them.

The government response to covid doesn't resemble that of an orchadist aggressively wielding pruning shears.  More like fire-hosing liquid fertiliser in every direction including on barren ground.  Fintechs continuing to receive generous taxpayer funding is a sign of these strange times, one of many examples.  Welfare for the well-heeled.

Will the formula for the value score be published & set in concrete, or opaque and subject to arbitrary re-jiggery. Short-selling somebody for fun and profit

"Invoice is considered to be a credit payment option" i.e. trade credit.  Does this legislation apply to business-to-business websites ?

Many companies in the distribution sector offer on-line purchases for on-account customers only.  They view their website as another channel for the use of their trade customers, an alternative or supplement to phone & email.  Many don't offer direct retail sales at all, for a variety of reasons.  Typically they want long-standing relationships with trusted business customers; margins may be low, but the value of each sale is high, and risk of non-payment is low.  They don't want the hassle of retail.  How will this legislation affect such companies ?

Will that Swedish legislation prevent on-line merchants from offering credit-card as the default payment method ?  If so, will it also apply to foreign companies that sell to Swedish consumers ?  A great many websites offer credit-card as the default (or only) payment method.  Debit-card and bank-transfer payment methods tend to be country-specific, more difficult for a foreign company.

If the legislation does apply to credit-cards (and is enforced for foreign companies) many companies will decide the Swedish market is too small for the trouble and will geo-block, Swedish consumers end up with less choice.

If the legislation doesn't apply to credit cards (only to biller-credit) the effect will be to protect the credit card companies from competition and to reduce consumer choice of credit products.

I don't know about Bill Me Later, I have a question myself; is "Pay in 4" the same thing as "Pay in 4X" ?

The PayPal terms & conditions for "Pay in 4X" say customers pay a Consumer Fee of 2.1% of the loan amount, plus a currency conversion fee and currency conversion rate variation if applicable, and there's a late fee of 8% of the value of a missed repayment.

If "Pay in 4" and "Pay in 4X" are the same thing, it's misleading to say the product has "no fees or interest."

The 2.1% Consumer Fee is capped but still represents pretty decent revenue for PayPal especially with interest rates as low as they are now.  Someone who knows consumer default rates could comment on whether the 8% late fee is less than or more than adequate to cover their credit risk.

I assume focus area E "new payment infrastructures and arrangements" in the report encompasses payment via blockchain ..."So far, these have not been implemented broadly; some are still in their design phase and others remain theoretical.  Hence their potential to enhance cross-border payments cannot yet be fully assessed."

Some others not mentioned in this report do provide reduction in payment friction of an altogether comprehensive nature, and progressed from theory to reality long since.  The reasons why despite this they've achieved little market penetration are worth exploring.

Such censorship doesn't fix, it breaks.  Language needs metaphors.  Master/slave as used in software and technology is a metaphor.  Borrowing the concept from human affairs and appying it to a technical realm.  To use a concept in this way is not to endorse the practice of slavery amongst people, but merely to acknowledge it's existence.

Many consumers of investment products understand only part of the risk.  They know the underlying asset may lose value but don't think about the risk of the "platform" failing.  Platform meaning the company that packages the assets for public consumption; the company that spends heavily promoting it's brand and building a slick website.  Customers don't appreciate that they don't actually own the asset, what they own is a debt; the platform company owes them money.  Should that platform company go bust, in theory the "custodial" or "nominee" structure will ring-fence customer funds from the company's operating funds.  In real-life failures the fence often proves insubstantial and funds are lost.  A common story for many asset classes both crypto and traditional.

Did people truly "shun ATMs" in the UK ?  Or is the problem supply, not demand.

A news headline here in New Zealand about a week ago "ATMs run out as consumers rush back to cash"