Archive for September 18, 2023

Adyen has issued over two billion active network tokens, marking 2,200% growth in the technology since 2020

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 18, 2023 by itnerd

Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading enterprise businesses, has now issued over two billion active network tokens. This milestone shows that Adyen is paving the way for businesses to embrace the innovation of network tokenization which converts regular card numbers into secure non-sensitive tokens.

Security remains a top priority for businesses, however this no longer needs to come at the expense of the customer experience. Through network tokenization, businesses have seen an average of 3% uplift in authorization rates equating to a multi-million dollar increase in revenue every month. 

Since network tokens are less expensive to process than a PAN card payment, businesses can reduce costs, while increasing transaction approval rates and revenue. This is especially transformative for subscription or digital businesses that offer customers “save card details” features making it easier than ever to shop online. 

The rapid growth in digital payments and e-commerce in recent years, accelerated further by the Covid-19 pandemic, has resulted in a striking rise of payments fraud. Adyen’s own research finds that 39% of businesses report an increase in fraud attempts over the last 12 months, while just 60% have effective fraud systems in place. With payments fraud becoming a critical challenge to business across all industries, network tokenization is key to creating a future of secure, and seamless online payments. 

Network tokenization is an emerging technology and as such not all issuers currently support it. To solve this challenge Adyen offers network token optimization which uses machine learning to choose between a network token or PAN payment to boost authorization rates. This drives an additional 1% uplift in authorization rates for businesses. 

Tim Cook And Apple Fails When It Comes To Twitter

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 18, 2023 by itnerd

On Sunday, Apple CEO Tim Cook did a wide ranging interview on CBS Sunday Morning. But I want to focus on what he said about Apple being on Twitter. As everyone knows, Twitter is a cesspool of hate since Elon Musk took over. But Apple who touts itself as a company that wants to always do what’s right is still advertising on Twitter despite the fact that Twitter is a cesspool of hate. When asked about that, here’s what he said:

When asked if Apple should continue to advertise on Twitter, Cook replied, “It’s something that we ask ourselves. Generally, my view is Twitter’s an important property. I like the concept that it’s there for discourse and there as a town square. There’s also some things about it I don’t like!”

“There’s discourse, and then there’s antisemitism,” said Dickerson. 

“Yeah, which is abhorrent. Just point blank, there is no place for it.” 

“So, is this something you’re constantly evaluating?” 

“It’s something we constantly ask ourselves,” Cook said. 

This to me is not only a major fail by Cook specifically and Apple in general, it is unacceptable. By advertising on Twitter, Apple is effectively in bed with racists of all stripes, not to mention anti-trans, anti-LGTBQ, and other scumbags that are now thriving on Elon Musk run Twitter. You’d think that Apple would want to distance themselves from this. But clearly Cook and Apple are too busy asking themselves about their relationship with Twitter. Apple can’t have it both ways. They need to make a choice. Do they stand with the types on Twitter who part of the cesspool of hate, or they stand for what’s right? And if Apple makes the wrong choice, I believe that we the public need to make a choice. Do we stand with Apple who apparently is fine being on a platform with bigots and other scumbags, or do we stand for what’s right and make our buying decisions based on that?

Your move Apple.

Swift And Wise Team Up

Posted in Commentary with tags , on September 18, 2023 by itnerd

Swift and Wise today announced an innovative collaboration to increase cross-border payment options for financial institutions and their customers, enabling payments sent securely via Swift to complete seamlessly over Wise with end-to-end transparency. 

Financial institutions seeking to innovate their offerings will be able to route Swift payment messages directly to Wise Platform – Wise’s infrastructure solution for banks and major enterprises — through its latest Correspondent Services solution. This will enable their customers to benefit from the speed and convenience of Wise, and the breadth of Swift without needing to implement any major changes to their systems. 

Wise Platform will harness advanced Swift capabilities to power its service, including cloud and API connectivity and Payment Pre-validation and will continue to offer banks all the hallmark features of Swift GPI, including a payment status tracker which Wise Platform will update to ensure end-to-end view across both networks.

The collaboration, announced in Toronto at the annual Sibos conference, is the start of a broader relationship, and comes as increased innovation and fragmentation in the financial ecosystem is creating more ways for money to move — and more consumer demand for choice. It reflects the importance of new forms of collaboration to provide optionality, while maintaining secure, reliable and inclusive connectivity. And it is directly aligned with both G20 and UN Sustainable Development goals on the speed, transparency, cost and access of cross-border transactions. 

Review: Otofly iPhone 14 Pro Silicone Case

Posted in Products with tags on September 18, 2023 by itnerd

The iPhone 15 might be about to ship on Friday, but I have an iPhone 14 Pro case to talk about. This one is from Otofly and it’s their iPhone 14 Pro Silicone case, which to be fair is available for other phones such as the iPhone 15 Pro as well. I got a black and a green one from Otofly that I’ll use to illustrate the key features of this case:

The outside of the case is made of silicone that is very grippy. The inside has a microfibre lining that makes sure that your phone doesn’t get scratched. The only thing I would point out is that silicone can pick up the oils on your fingers, as evidenced by the black case. But given the fact that this case was comfortable to hold in my hand and doesn’t pick up lint in your pockets, as well as not adding any bulk, that’s far from being a deal breaker.

The case provides good protection for your camera so that lenses don’t get scratched. You can also see the sleep/wake button which has a pretty decent feel when you click it. As do the other buttons on the case.

The speaker grills and the Lightning port are the only things exposed on the bottom.

As for the most important part which is the screen, it works with screen protectors and provides a bit of a lip so that screen doesn’t touch the table if you lay your phone face down.

As for drop protection, I am going to guess that if you drop your phone in this case from say three feet, it will be fine. Dropping your phone from something above that height might be an issue. But having said that, you’re likely getting this case to express your individuality as there are 25 colours available. The only thing that is close to negative that I have to say about this case is that it lacks MagSafe. That was a bit of an issue for me as I have a couple of MagSafe accessories that I use on a regular basis. One is this MagSafe charger which worked mostly fine as it had just enough magnetic strength to stick to the charger and charge my iPhone, and the other being this MagSafe wallet which wouldn’t stick to this case at all. Having MagSafe would have been the cherry on top of the sundae so to speak as this is otherwise a very good case. Especially given that it is $18.99 on Otofly’s website. I’d be giving this case a look if you want a good quality case that’s easy to hold and offers some amount of drop protection.