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In his 19:46 comment, Brett King states: "I find it ironic that the report that identifies that only 25% of 'young' brits visited a branch in the last 12 months, and yet that is the fact that is slated in the headline as a celebration of branch banking."

No Brett, you're wrong on two counts:

1. A quarter of respondents have visited a branch only to find it closed.
2. The closed bit is in the headline – hardly a 'celebration of branch banking'.

Getting back to your initial point, the fact that chip and PIN is - assuming it comes - still a way off, I'd suggest iZettle is right to ignore the US and concentrate on the massive European market on its doorstep. 

Right, glad you now accept that Visa isn’t planning chip and PIN.

I suggest you read the story I linked to, which itself contains a link to Visa's own blog, which contains the quote:

"One thing that's clear from the questions is that there's a lot of confusion around the myth that EMV means "chip-and-PIN." It doesn't in many countries, including the U.S. That's because, in the U.S., we can rely on online processing where transactions are transmitted in real-time to the issuer for approval. With that in place, there's no need for the offline authentication that was the genesis of chip-and-PIN." 

@ Alexander

No, they're introducing EMV, not necessarily chip and PIN. 

@ Anon

No, you didn't get your sums wrong.

Yes, cheque usage rose from 0.06% of all transactions in 2010 to 0.09% in 2011. I wouldn't read too much into that though - a 50% rise from such a low base doesn't have to signify much. Just look at the previous years to get an idea of how the numbers bump around; in 2009 in was 0.13% and in 2008 0.07%. The point is, cheques account for miniscule fraction of high street payments (most big retailers don't even accept them anymore).

Similarly, yes, credit and charge cards saw a slight increase from 10.86% of all transactions in 2010 to 10.98% in 2011. However, the changes for debit cards (nearly 5% down) and cash (3% up) are far greater and show that the broad 'cards down, cash up' claim has some validity.

Here's a link to the full report.

Via e-mail, some thoughts from an anonymous Zopa lender:

'Speaking for myself as a Zopa lender of a few years now I'd say Yes, I am middle class but definitely not comfortably off. I enjoy the social aspect of Zopa and I appreciate the financial returns on my small investment. Giles is right when he says that many of us that are active on Zopa's discussion board feel we're part of something worthwhile.'

Victoria Ward from Wonga has e-mailed this response:

Hi Matt, it's Wonga here. An interesting post and we always welcome new viewpoints. I don't think we've ever compared ourselves to Zopa, other than the fact we're both young companies doing new and innovative things in finance. I would just like to make a few quick points of our own, in response to some of the suggestions made if that's OK.

Firstly, our business model does not rely on customers not being able to pay off loans or on rolling debt. Just the opposite, because we make money when people pay back on time or early and that's why we decline around two-thirds of applicants with our data-based, automated approach. Less than 1-in-10 loans are ever extended (which customers can choose to do by as little as 24 hours, if their circumstances change) and we limit such requests to three maximum.

Our average loan is 16 days and we charge simple interest of just under 1% per day. So, for a typical loan of £160, that's around £1.60 per day - for cash we deposit in minutes, 24/7. The APR never becomes relevant to such loans and no-one pays hundreds, never mind thousands of per cent in interest. We even limit interest in arrears to 60 days maximum, should we not be able to agree a sensible repayment plan beforehand.

Secondly, to your point about the implausibility of customers "turning up to an event" hosted by Wonga – we have nearly 100,000 active Facebook fans, who are largely customers. That's more than virtually all the high street banks put together and we prefer to engage with customers on a daily basis.

We also survey our customers regularly, independently and on a very wide scale (more than 28,000 respondents to the last one), as you alluded to. Less than a quarter say they have used a comparable, short-term loan service in the past and yet all have fully-functioning bank accounts. More than 75% also say they had access to traditional credit products at the point of application. This is not a service for people without choices, but a new way for people to cover short-term needs and it's far more mainstream than most people realise.

Thanks for letting us make a few points. 

@ Salil 

First in Japan. Finextra covered the Isbank story here.

Finextra is not "trying to imply" anything here; unlike some of our readers we have no skin in the game that would necessitate us taking a particular stance. There also seems to be some confusion over the definition of 'moot'; to clarify, it means open to argument, debatable. I think that's an appropriate word to use in this instance and it certainly doesn't imply that Finextra thinks "FIs don't need to worry about social media", only, to labour a point, that this evidence suggests there is a discussion to be had.

Interestingly, for our commentator, that BT/Avaya survey also found that "73 per cent of customers in the UK — and a similar number in Germany, Spain and the US — see their local branch as the most vital link with their bank in the future – second only to cash machines".