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I looked at what problem the BofE is trying to solve with the Digital pound. Only thing I can find is this: "The Bank and the Government would not have access to any personal data and users would have freedom in how they spent their digital pounds." 

Currently a person can buy a prepaid card in the UK that can be used in POS's. In general, the person buying needs to provide an ID (to deter money laundering). So if the raison d'etre of a Digital pound is to give users Privacy and freedom in how they spend their Digital pounds, wouldn't this then be opening users to money laundering? If BofE wants to give this, then why just not loosen the rules around the purchasing and usage of prepaid cards? I believe prepaid cards are digitised already. So, problem solved.

Will this innovation include money-laundering controls?

Most can see the link between the squeeze on interchange rates and the growth of BNPL and other credit facilities. Entities that issue payment instruments need to make money. There is more money to be made issuing credit than debit. 

Some BNPL schemes automatically take the payment from the customers' debit cards enabling customers to benefit from 0% credit. The merchants pay for this type of BNPL. BNPLs are not all the same. Consumers and the FCA might want to watch out for BNPLs that automatically charge interest.

"FCA has determined that it can go for the corporate but it may lead one to wonder whether they have bitten off more than they can chew."

I quite agree with how FCA has handled these cases. Responsibility to comply is with the Bank (Corporate). What this means is that they (Corporates/Banks) need to provide systems, processes and controls to ensure that the company and its employees comply and have adequate checks against AML.

More details about Natwest case is published by FCA: 

"The case arises from the handling of funds deposited into accounts operated by a UK incorporated customer of NatWest. The FCA alleges that increasingly large cash deposits were made into the customer’s accounts. It is alleged that around £365 million was paid into the customer’s accounts, of which around £264 million was in cash.

It is alleged that NatWest's systems and controls failed to adequately monitor and scrutinise this activity."

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-starts-criminal-proceedings-against-natwest-plc

A bit mind-boggling to guess the velocity/frequency by which this £264 million in cash was deposited within 5 years (2011 - 2016). Even if it was spread out within 60 months, that's a deposit of £4.4 million in cash each month. This was from a UK incorporated customer. What would be interesting to know about this case is what kind of trading is this Natwest's UK incorporated customer doing?

Sunak in charge of this is like having a fox right in the hen house. Big conflict of interest. His father in law founded Infosys. Also it's not good to copy the the much abused H1B visa programme in the U.S. 

Gimmick pure and simple. Wait till cardholders use their numberless CURVE cards in ATMs and the magnetic stripe is skimmed and cloned. 

If CURVE is issuing commercial debit cards for non business accounts, then someone explain to me WHY that is NOT ILLEGAL.  

First, some merchants can charge more when commercial debit cards are used and obviously CURVE using a Commercial CURVE Debit account without the implications being transparent to their users (i.e. can be charged more even if their underlying is only a debit card) is not legal. 

Using a CURVE commercial debit card with merchants for non business accounts is also unfair to merchants when the underlying card linked to the CURVE card is a non-commercial debit card. Merchants are forced to pay higher fees - without their prior knowledge or consent because its a CURVE Commercial card and CURVE skims the difference between interchange fees for commercial debit vs. consumer debit? 

If this is happening, I would expect a number of lawsuits from merchants and CURVE users alike once merchants and CURVE users are clued in that this is what is happening.

Wulf Matthias, WIRECARD's chairman of the Board from 2008 till Jan 2020 seems to have been the 'guardian' that resisted the Audit Calls. He's still sits at the Board.

His successor, Thomas Eichelmann is who supported the KPMG audit. So as Chairman of the Board, is it plausible that Mr. Wulf Matthias didn't know anything about the made-up accounts in the Philippines? 

Oh and how will the bank customer input the amount of money they want to withdraw? Will they have to blink as many times to tell the ATM how much they want?

This is really great! So forward looking.

Will they also sanitise the cash before placing it in the dispenser?