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Bloody awful things - QR codes. But we're gonna have to get used to them; I accept that 600 million+ regular users of Alipay and WeChat Pay cannot all be wrong.

Melvyn - Was it true the original (pre-card) paper vouchers were embedded with some radioactive compound as a counterfeit measure?

Perhaps Sophie is right. As a payments nerd I really hope so. I need to travel back from Copenhagen via Hamburg tomorrow. So I will conduct a Hamburger taxi driver cashless society opinion poll and report back on how close we are to end of ATM.

I'm not sure this will affect me; I have problems getting Alexa to acknowledge me, never mind getting personal.

But for those people who like this method of bonding, what is the real risk?

OK - families with twins may be exposed (Steve above makes a good point on that). 

Or perhaps famous people and celebrities are those at those most in peril here? I could imagine a Fraud startup business employing a few comedy impersonators (like Rory Bremner or Ronni Ancona) to hack into celebrities' accounts.

But it would take them quite a while to master each target. So as a potential investor in this fraud business, I'm out. (And there's no need to send an emergency celebrity warning tweet just yet).

Thing is, although this could be classed as an annoying bit of journalism, it does highlight the need to raise consumer confidence/education in emerging digital banking techniques.

Looks like "Customer controls" will polarise opinions! But customer education (or behavioral "nudge") is an absolute necessity for citizens in a digitalised economy. OK - lets make it as simple and inclusive as possible but we're gonna need to change habits. Its a bit like house insurance - if you want to leave your front door secured by a simple latch then that's fine. But please don't complain if your neighbour with the dead-bolt lock and a burglar alarm gets a cheaper insurance deal. Your choice.

Yep - the "customer controls" wavefront is upon us. Not just for cards, but for all manner of consent/permission management, particularly as PSD2 and GDPR become reality over the next few years.

Damn! Have all those API hackathons been a waste of time? 

One third of the population predict no cash in 3 years time? How the heck will they keep their kids entertained at the seaside amusement arcade without a bucket of coins and a "coin nudger" machine. This would be a national disaster. And that's why even 2043 seems a fanciful guess for end of cash.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the PSD2 Credit Card Kerfuffle. Its a relief to know I'm not the only one unsure on whether (and how) credit card issuers will need to support pushed payment initiation requests. The way I see it, the "spirit" of PSD2 says yes, even if the actual words say something less coherent.

Having peeked at the speech on the EBA web site, it wasn't the rise from 10 to 30 EURO that grabs the attention - it is the new exemption from Strong Customer Authentication in the case of "Transaction Risk Analysis" usage. Presumably common sense has prevailed. But it'll be interesting to see how many permutations of transaction flows and auth methods get spawned as a result.