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Re. "(Monzo) ...join IFTTT ecosystem as one of only 11 financial services and payments services." Monzo claimed that it's the first bank in the world to join the IFTTT ecosystem. I'm seeing a lot of rebuttals and rebuttals to rebuttals of that claim on my Twitter Timeline.

Can you post the list of the 11 financial and payment services who have joined the IFTTT ecosystem?

Why would I want to ditch my credit card? Maybe it's only me but this has the makings of becoming yet another solution looking for a problem. In any case, Bank Transfer mode of payment has been around for ages in India. Memory serves, it was also going to be launched by EBA Clearing nearly 10 years ago in Europe. My post on this topic is dated 2011. And that post began with a declaration that it was not innovative.

How is this "truly innovative"?

@MarkSibthorpe: Not really. Patent is a patent is a patent. The fact that the patent office has granted it means the patent has merit. If it doesn't have merit, the patent office shouldn't grant the patent. Patent trolling relates to purpose of filing patent. Even if somebody files a patent only with the intent of trolling - and there's no evidence that USAA has done that in this instance - it doesn't take away the feat of getting the patent in the first place. 

50 patents for just Mobile RDC? Kudos to USAA for achieving that stunning feat!

I agree that SMEs have a lousy experience while applying for bank loans. However, I disagree about the root cause. Bob Hope once said, "A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it." SMEs can't. That - more than technology - explains why banks treat SMEs shabbily. IMO, SMEs will get a good borrowing experience only from nonbank loan providers viz. NBFCs (Non Banking Financial Companies) in India.

Yes indeed @BobLyddon, getting away with BS perpetually does require a certain type of skill. 

Profitability is passé. Traction is the name of the game. More so if the said new bank is funded by venture capital à la Flipkart, PayTM, Uber, WeWork, et al but equally so even if it's listed publicly like SnapChat, Shopify, et al. 

As NYT put it so well in a recent article entitled The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now. Enjoy It While You Can.:

"It used to be that in order to survive, businesses had to sell goods or services above cost. But that model is so 20th century. The new way to make it in business is to spend big, grow fast and use Kilimanjaro-size piles of investor cash to subsidize your losses, with a plan to become profitable somewhere down the road. Over all, 76 percent of the companies that went public last year were unprofitable on a per-share basis."

Nice post. The popular narrative on alt-coins in general and ICOs in particular swings between two extremes of the spectrum: Either it's the best thing since sliced bread or worst thing since WMD. It's not often that one comes across a balanced perspective. By pointing out that hit rate of ICOs is no lower than that of VCs, your post strikes the middleground. Kudos.

Two quick observations: (1) Coinist.com seems to have shut down - when I just checked, I found that the domain name was for sale at https://uniregistry.com/market/domain/coinist.com (2) Given the financial losses involved in a failed ICO, any specific reason why the title of your post has chosen to dwell on loss of time instead?

LOL didn't think anyone would act on my guidance just 3 days after I published How Blockchain Can Crack The Holy Grail Of Loyalty Programs:)

Keen to know whether OCBC / StarHub's proposed platform will merely permit users to manage multiple loyalty programs from one consolidated portal à la Using Miles and KeyRing referenced in my post OR enable trading of reward points of one program with those of another program à la  the Reward Exchanges referenced in my post.  

@Bob Lyddon: I didn't know Visa is a regulated entity. Hmmm, then they should b****y well answer for the downtime to public bodies. On a side note, I should quickly make a beeline to the bank in your area. As Jeff Bezos once said, "your margin is my opportunity". Likewise this bank's economic illiteracy is my margin!