If you are going to mention the open banking API initiative, then what are the requirements to get access to that? You can't as an individual.
Also, this was the easy case, inter-UK. Now tell me how to transfer using Python and without applying to all kinds of regulators for API access a pound from a UK account to a US/EU/Japan account.
It’s been a few years so I don’t remember the details, but I’ve written Python that was about that simple using Teller[0] without any problems. Didn’t need a digital currency or direct access to the Open Banking API, just used normal Pounds Sterling and normal bank accounts.
It gives Teller full access to your account from what I read, can you limit it for example to just send money, without them going through your statements?
And it's still only intra-UK.
Wise (Formerly TransferWise) does forex.
I fully agree with you though, the Open Banking outcome in reality almost looks like a joke. I only found the above as I was searching for a while to find a way to do this that didn't involve building my own screen scrapers to implement.
There are banking offerings in the UK with official APIs however you are looking at £200/month+ in costs.
And what about fees? BTC, ETH and many other coins are essentially unusable for smaller transactions. Sending .02 ETH (about $45) from my MEW wallet costs .00292 ETH (about $6.75).
What happens if I give a street artist 5 pounds to draw my picture and then he flatly refuses?
What happens if someone mugs me on the street and steals 100 pounds from me?
Should we not have cash at all because of these two problems, and others?
as you've alluded to, its not open to consumers, only financial institutions, with good reason. It gives you lots of access to do all sorts of things.
> how I can transfer one pound from me to you using a 20 line Python script?
Now this isn't a usecase I had thought about. I mean there are APIs that I can use to interface to a specific bank that will allow me to do this. But they are hidden behind layers of bureaucracy.
I think the issue for _consumer_ banking is making sure there is enough screening to make sure its not as easy for scammers and tricksters to get money from you.
How so? There's no reason a bank account shouldn't be programmable. If the worry is fraud and account hacks, that already happens when the computer is compromised or people get scammed.
Agreed.
But until we have a better system of plainly showing access levels to one's account its a scammer paradise to allow access via said API.
You and I are educated in the world of API access, so will think twice before clicking "agree" to allowing emoji corp access to my bank account to "verify your identity", but a significant number of people would blindly click allow. Until we have either educated the public, or made an access GUI that stops 99.9% of that kind of use case, its just not worth the hassle.
Nobody says such API would be connected to a person's life holdings. It could be low amounts that are safe to lose in case of a hack.
Of course, you need to educate people to not put all their life savings into those accounts. But the same applies to multiple other services.
Look at the current £10 note. To even start on getting a "close enough" material (the feel of the polymer, the clear windows), you're looking at acquiring specialized print stock they don't exactly stock at the Office Supply Warehouse down the street. Now, how exactly are you going to transfer a design to it? Conventional CMYK inkjet and laser-- if you can get it to stick, are going to be a dotty, indistinct mess. Heat-transfer might bake the colour in, but would probably wreck the material and be blurry and smudgy. Once you've figured that out, try to figure out how you can precision-cut and apply holographic foil and optically-variable panels. Now scale it up to the point where it's economically viable.
If you've used a printer before, you know it's not going to be capable of cranking out a convincing banknote.
For consumer acceptance, it's important that people can directly trust the system. I'm concerned that "here's some papers that if I go to my local university, there might be a few experts in the math department who can parse them and tell me it's trustworthy" won't have quite the same impact as "look at the fine lines making up the portrait of Jane Austin, you know that's not coming out of your HP DeskJet."
So often not though. Money without oversight will instantly attract the most nefarious users that governments don't like, so it's unlikely anything a government would propose is going to very easily allow things to happen without some kind of regulatory control.
It's hard to fathom exactly what the point would be, because even the benefit of reducing VISA style transaction taxes from the current 2.5% to about 0.1% (which is where it should be) would incur the wrath of the institutions that make money from that and sponsor centre-right politicians in the UK.
It's too early to tell, it could just be a political football for now, something to talk about, get attention, distract us etc..
In fact, things are heading the other way, with "micro"-transactions in mainstream games sometimes exceeding the price of the game itself.
In the music business u don't make money on each song, you only make oney from hit songs.
That song streamed 10 million times can earn you $50k. And it could be more if spotify wasn't taking a bite out of it.
[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-spotify-pay-pe...
Open Banking is not available to individuals by design. Can you imagine the fraud levels if it was?