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Oh, to introduce modern stuff like FPS, TARGET2, SEPA, Mobile Banking and so on, banks are already undertaking plenty of 'Scheduled and Emergency Engineering Work' on a regular basis. Just that they shield their customers from the ensuing downtime by (a) investing a lot of money on deploying clustering technologies with ACTIVE:ACTIVE servers and the like OR (b) by undertaking such work at, like, 3 o'clock in the middle of the night.

If we still have HSBC like incidents, it's because of UN'scheduled Emergency' reasons!

On another note, I always thought all that weekend rail downtime was caused by repairs of existing rails rather than on constructing new rails.

Better now? I just complained that my bank removed the "Favorite Transaction" feature on its ATM. When it was around during the past 2-3 years, it had cut down transaction times and resulted in shorter queues. Now, we're back to the earlier longer queues:(

As a sales, marketing and product management professional in B2B tech:

1. CRM has reached its current state of presence and revenues after having been around for over 20 years.
2. Besides, CRM never really helped sales people sell more / better. It gained traction because it helped CROs to keep a better track of whether their sales people were selling more / better.
3. The hierarchy in product is somewhat flat compared to sales. While the CPO title has started becoming visible of late, especially in startups, it's really just an upgrade of the product manager title. Ergo, product management software lacks the positioning hook that CRM enjoys.

That said, with the proliferation of product management software products in the recent past, we can expect greater adoption of this genre of technology in the next 10-15 years. 

I'd rather walk down to the store. But this will take off bigtime. A lot of people will get a chance to join this MEDIUM writer in claiming that this will disrupt banks:  

https://medium.com/@MirelaAmariei/what-is-next-after-fintech-becomes-business-as-usual-b7bcb71f8cd5#.z6lq1eq6z

TY @CharmaineOak. I just remembered that PayPal already has a solution for micropayments. Wonder if we'll see it more frequently on publisher websites in 2016? 

I also read on Digiday recently that Condé Nast just started using micropayments from CoinTent on its GQ magazine website.

@DeanWallace + 1.

Consumer preferences also keep shifting between one mode of payment to another due to charges, friction / CX and other factors.

I went from Card to Cash on Delivery for online transactions due to 2FA friction; from online / card to offline / cheque or cash for bill payments due to 2FA friction and exorbitant "online gateway" charges, then back to card when I found HDFC Bank PayZapp.

Just yesterday, a fintech professional was so put off by the friction involved in using Venmo for transferring money to herself that she vented her ire on Twitter: "Sad note to self for next time: write a check."  (https://twitter.com/cjc/status/684131336135692289)

Fintech professionals may treat a certain MOP as Holy Grail whereas consumers have no such "cast in stone" preferences: They're perfectly comfortable with multiple MOPs and use the one that best suits their context i.e. they want choice.

After seeing a few ecommerce websites / apps displaying so many MOPs, I recently noted that their checkout page looks like their product catalog pages. Purists might balk at this approach but consumers seem to be perfectly comfortable with it. This finsurgent rhetoric about one payment method killing another is simply not consistent with real world consumer behavior.

TY @CharmaineOak for your reply. I tend to agree with your prediction re. games, royalty and music. Do you think the same model will also work for content of the nature of news items, blog posts and magazine articles?

I'm guessing the gangsta threat "your money or your life" will take on a new meaning from now!

Keen on knowing your views on whether the recent buzz around ad blockers will lead to a revival of micropayments as an alternative way for publishers are to monetize their content? I use the word "revival" intentionally because micropayments were hot towards 2009 until they cooled down in 2010, as I'd written in a blog post at the time Micropayments – Saviors or Enablers? (hyperlink removed to comply with Finextra Community Rules but this post will appear on top of Google Search results)

When I was in UK, I'd two, not one, bank accounts. Both were fee-free. I'd really like to know who are these 9 million people in UK without a bank account and why they don't have one. I thought only India and USA inflated unbanked numbers to serve populist ends Calling B.S On Banking The Unbanked. Looks like UK is catching up.