It’s always nice to see your work recognised—thank you to Juliana Kaplan from Business Insider for including my perspective in her latest piece on credit card rewards and consumer behaviour. A timely topic, and one that continues to evolve. Of course, you can also read my take on rewards here

QR code payments have become a defining symbol of the cashless economy. Easy to recognise and simple to use, these matrix barcodes allow users to pay instantly by scanning with a smartphone. By 2025, more than 40 countries have launched QR payment systems, either through central banks, private platforms, or a mix of both. However, despite this broad geographical reach, very few countries have seen these systems flourish at scale.

At first glance, it might seem surprising to hear Robert Goldstein, COO of BlackRock, praising the value of English and history graduates. But for those paying attention to the direction of fintech and payments, it feels less like a revelation and more like a long-overdue acknowledgement. Goldstein’s recent remarks—voicing “more and more conviction” in hiring people from the humanities—cut across the well-worn narrative that only STEM subjects matter, especially in industries shaped by algorithms, data, and digital infrastructure.

As in 2016, the Trump administration once again floated the idea of taxing remittances sent from the United States to foreign countries, proposing a 5% levy on outbound transfers. While politically framed as a measure to "protect American interests," this idea resurrects a mercantilist logic that sits uneasily with the realities of modern cross-border payment systems and the lives of migrant workers.

This week’s revelations from Publimetro are a sobering reminder of the fragile underpinnings of a fully digital financial ecosystem. The report alleges that databases held by banks, Mexico’s tax authority (SAT), and even the national electoral institute (INE) were being offered for sale on a hacker forum—for as little as $5,000. It’s a striking example of the systemic vulnerabilities that arise when cash disappears and data becomes currency.

The idea that shops in the UK could be required to accept cash has sparked a diverse response across the political and media spectrum (see table below)—but one thing is clear: this isn’t just about protecting vulnerable people, though that in itself is reason enough. It’s about ensuring that everyone retains the right to choose how they pay—whether with coins, cards, or a mobile tap.

In May 2023, WeChat made headlines by introducing one of the first significant rollouts of palm-vein payment technology. Debuting in Beijing’s Daxing Airport Express line and several university dining halls in Shenzhen and Shanghai, WeChat Palm Pay allows users to pay simply by hovering their hand over a scanner. By the end of 2023, Tencent reported over ten thousand palm-scanning terminals had been installed across restaurants, vending machines, metro stations, and retail outlets in select Chinese cities.

As regulators, fintechs, and central banks inch or giant-leap towards the ideal of a "cashless society", the conversation has rightly focused on consumer choice while conveniently side-stepped issues of cost transparency. But beyond these valid points lies a more fundamental issue: resilience. The digital payments infrastructure that underpins modern commerce is efficient—until it isn’t. It has been designed to support far higher volumes than cash ever could.

Chapter 2 of Cash and Dash (Bátiz-Lazo, 2018) offers a timely reminder that major financial innovations often took years — even decades — to establish themselves. Far from being instant game-changers, technologies like the ATM spread unevenly, tangled in local infrastructure challenges, regulatory caution, and a general sense of “wait and see.” First Adoption of Cash Machines in Selected Countries (1967-1980)

As we brace for a potential recession, the future of credit card rewards and points programs hangs in the balance. How will these perks evolve in an economic downturn? That was the super interesting question that I recently discussed with Juliana Kaplan from Business Insider. From an international payments systems perspective, credit card rewards programmes have long been a strategic tool for issuers to drive customer acquisition and retention.

Over a decade ago, in 2014, Fabian Markert published a paper, while modest in its scope, it offered a clear-headed analysis of the tangle that plagued banks’ internal payment architectures. Writing at the height of SEPA implementation, Markert described a world in which banks had grown up with scattered, legacy-based systems—so-called “spaghetti” architectures—that were expensive to maintain and increasingly ill-suited to a competitive European payment environment.

Not sure how these are selected but probably would make the cut if I was more regular. Anyway, glad Chris Skinner is there but sad that Dave Birch is not ranked higher. See the full list here. To illustrate this post, we introduce “Prof. Cashtron: The Chronicler of the Financial Future” — an action figure inspired by groundbreaking work in financial technology and the history of cash machines... With a wee hint of Ultraman by Chatgpt.

How do famines shape the health of survivors? We examine the long-term impact of the Great Irish Famine (1845–52) on human stature, distinguishing between adverse scarring effects and the apparent re....