Open Banking: EU v. USA

Open Banking is a flop, it’s too costly, clunky, and businesses struggle to make money from it. – Anne Boden, CEO of Starling Bank, to Treasury Committee (Source). With a regulatory mandate and after five years of incessant media buzz, EU Open Banking recently crossed 5 million users. See Open banking passes five million user … Read more

Merchants Give Middle Finger To RBI Emandate

At the conclusion of my post entitled How RBI Emandate Can Become Consumer Savior, I had outlined two alternative operating models for the new RBI Emandate. For the uninitiated, Emandate, a new regulation that came into effect in India from 1 October 2021, changes how banks process recurring payments and auto debits (“Standing Instructions”) set … Read more

Leading Universal Bank Cuts Compliance Cost

Here’s our latest success story: Leading Universal Bank Cuts Compliance Cost CRO Multiplies Conversion Of Website Visitors To Aadhaar Seeders To comply with the government’s “Aadhaar Seeding” regulation, this leading universal bank in India needed to seed bank accounts with customers’ Aadhaar details. In this pursuit, the bank executed an omnichannel campaign targeted at its … Read more

Variants Are Making Phishing Attacks More Lethal Than Ever

Phishing attacks typically stoke greed or fear, just as many genuine business pursuits do. Not surprisingly, they enjoy a fairly high success rate. At 3%, it comes close to the conversion rate of leading ecommerce websites like Amazon and Flipkart. Surprised to learn that phishing emails have a success rate of ~3%. That's as high … Read more

All Deceptions Are Not Equal – Bait-And-Switch Versus Phishing

Bait and Switch and Phishing are both deceptive. But, beyond that basic characteristic, they’re not the same. In Bait and Switch, the deception is in the offer. In Phishing, the deception is in the offeror. Let’s get on with it. Bait and Switch Bait and Switch is a type of Dark Pattern in which “you … Read more

Economic Times Publishes My Puff Piece On Bitcoin

Dear Editor of Economic Times: This has reference to the twin op-ed entitled “IT GIVES THE CREEPS” by Ateesh Tankha and Mythili Bhusnurmath in today’s edition of The Economic Times. This article reminds me of similar opinions expressed on these very pages in the 1990s regarding equity. Despite all the doomsday prophecies made by pundits … Read more

How RBI Emandate Can Become Consumer Savior

Reserve Bank of India brought Emandate into force on 1 October 2021. As we saw in RBI Emandate: Revenue Killer Or Consumer Interest Savior?, this regulation impacts recurring payments and auto debits (“Standing Instructions”) set up with credit card and debit card. This was after a postponement of six 24* months at the behest of … Read more