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OK Guys:

Authorisation Telephones - Barclaycard's brand was Cardsure and they were either Racal TCL100's or STC Telechecks. The next Racal was the TCL110 and Fortronic bought the APACS30 technology in the STC Telecheck to put in the F75. All the Auth Telephones were then given to Online Card Services (OLCS) the company set up by Barclaycard, Access, Diners and Amex - Can you believe it was going to be called Bank Online Card Services! Barclaycard also had some Auth Phones from Ericsson that all us 'engineers' had because the display was so bright you could get dressed without putting the light on when called out because a BT Pad had gone down.

I seem to remeber that the TCL200 only hand 128k of memory and you reprogrammed it by swapping EEPROMS!

First terminal was at Miss Selfridge, Brent Cross Shopping Centre, London. First purchase a Grey and White Stripped Blouse bought by Liz Talbot.

Excuse me while I just climb onto my ‘high horse'.

Mobile Payments - what exactly does that mean? I would argue that it is completely meaningless because it has been used by every marketing department to spin their products as the new "m-payment". OK set let's look at the candidates 1) Buying goods on-line from your mobile phone. If you are browsing the internet and then buying something using a payment card or PayPal - isn't that just ecommerce on a mobile phone? What's new? 2) Using your mobile phone to pay contactlessly - isn't that just using an existing card payment system using a different form factor? 3) Charging goods purchased to your mobile phone bill - surely that's just another payment system where the phone itself or your number becomes the token to point to your phone account. But apparently it's all of these and loads of other stuff besides.

To establish charging stuff to your mobile phone bill the phone companies will have to become essentially ‘card issuers' with all of the account and fraud management that entails, acquirers to have the relationship with the retailers to pay them for the goods they sold and create and international interchange process for the times I'm not on my network provider's network and buy something. Frankly I don't trust mobile operators to get my phone bill correct let alone financial transactions (I have a little more faith in the banks - only a little). I prefer mobile operators to concentrate on giving good coverage, cheaper data charges and cheaper roaming charges. To me this looks like one for the too hard to do pile.

Using my mobile as the token - I'm in favour of that and probably willing to pay for the application for my phone but it is just another form factor to access the existing payment system. And buying stuff online - well it's buying stuff online.

Mobile Payments - sounds sexy but is completely meaningless.

I'll get down now.

I have a number of Barclaycards and Barclays Bank cards and all new and re-issued cards support contactless functionality. I'm also keen to be able to make use of a mobile phone to 'carry' these card products. But and it's a big BUT I'm not prepared to except Barclaycard telling me what handset to have and which network to use. I want to be able to choose the handset that meets my needs and the network that provides a service that also meets my needs. Until the Issuers realise that the one that lets me make those choices is the one that I will use not the one that tries to prescribe my handset and network choices.

My ideal is the true electronic equivalent of my leather wallet. What do I do today? As I approach the point of sale I take out my wallet, open it, choose a card (is it business or private; debit or credit) and pay either chip and PIN or contactless. So in the "New Contactless World" as approach the point of sale I want to take out mobile phone, turn it on, open the wallet application, choose the card to pay with, enter a PIN or password to enable the "pay" function and PayWave or Tap & Go. I also want that application to record the transaction so that I can open the application on the phone and review spending (no password required) and on the phone the cards / accounts should have the "names" I want to give them not card numbers i.e. Company Card, Expenses Account, Personal Debit etc. Ideally I would like to be able to synchronise this with an application on my PC.

And all this not just on an iPhone (haven't got one -won't have one) but on Android that continues to grow its market share.

While issuers continue with the "have this handset on this network and you can have the functionality" I think the general answer will be a resounding NO.

Elizabeth are these checks you use similar to the cheques that are being phased out?

"said First Data Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan J. Judge, a 34-year technology-industry executive who began his new role Oct. 1, 2010. Previously, Judge served as president and CEO at Paychex, Inc. and is a 26-year veteran of IBM Corporation." My they start them young at IBM by my calculation he started when he was 8! (34-26).

At last it begins to dawn! What seems to be missed is that many of the "6 million or so" devices have already been upgraded (well hardware at least) as the main terminal vendors have been deploying 'standard product' with a chip card reader  globally for a number of years. By deploying EMV the need for expensive and hard to manage end to end encryption becomes less attractive.

I've said it before "Resistance is Futile - You will comply".

I believe I too am of a certain age. When I go into a meeting I automatically turn off my phone out of courtesy to my clients. I have a smart phone but emails aren't automatically collected I do it manually when I'm ready and have the time to review them. I wonder how many poor or bad decisions have been made because of the Crackberry revolution. An email received has to be read and answered immediately with no pause for consideration, to mull over the contents before responding and all this at any time of the day or night. Guys they do have off buttons you know! So of this comes down to self discipline at seven o'clock at home with the kids you are not at work, you are paid 9 ‘till 5 (well give or take unless you have an "on call" job). If your boss says "I sent you an email at seven last night - why didn't you answer" have the strength to say "Oh did you! I was at home reading to my kids at seven." It has become the expectation that staff are available almost 24 / 7 and the time has come for people to fight back and just stop responding to the "electronic leash" out of office hours - you're not being paid so stop working! Companies go on about "work life balance" so they should not expect people to work out of hours.

Back in the day when I started work (in the communications industry) I travelled round as a maintenance engineer and rang control at the end of each job for the next one. Then I got a pager (those that don't know what a pager is - enough said I'm old), if I was needed urgently for a higher priority job that the one I was going to, and when paged I found a phone box! The in my next company I actually got to use the office mobile if I was out of the office but coverage wasn't great and there still wasn't the immediacy that's expected today. The point is Business Still Functioned and I would agree in many respects more efficiently because we weren't swamped with useless information. Today people get asked a question and Reply All immediately and C.C. in loads of other people who chip in their two peneth and Reply All. My answer to those who ask why I've not responded or done anything about "X" is "If by sending me a courtesy copy you thought I was going to do anything - you were wrong. If you want me to do anything send the message to me or better still Speak to me."

I think we need to start a counter revolution to restore some old time discipline to meetings. If it's your meeting ask people to turn off their phones and blackberries or put them in the middle of the table out of reach and if they reach for it ask what the problem is. If it's not your meeting and you're speaking and people start texting etc. stop, stare at them and when they look up be rude "Have you finished? Because that was obviously vastly more important than what anyone in this meeting has to say."

The young know no better it's down to us old guys to teach them there is a better way. Sorry rant over - but you know we're right.

"Under the terms of the settlement, Twitter will be barred for 20 years from misleading consumers" shouldn't they and all companies in fact be barred forever from misleadign consumers. Does this mean after 20 years they can start again?

"Jack Dorsey admitting parts were released 'before they were fully baked'." I'd suggest that it's not even half baked yet. From the American Banker "Square charges 2.75% plus 15 cents, and on keyed-in transactions where a card is not present, the charge is 3.75% and 15 cents" which sounds worse than some bank MSC. I'd be interested to know what Dorsey is doing about PCI-DSS, PA-DSS et al. Will the product support the current 'flavour of the year' end to end encryption? I'm sure the fraudsters will be keeping an eye on eBay for a job lot of cheap square skimmers.