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Blog by Brett King; posted by Finextra

Brett King - Bank 2.0

Group: Finance 2.0

Can the banking industry re-engineer trust in the system?

01 Aug, 2012 19:35

I grew up in a world where a run on the ‘bank’ was never realistically going to happen. I grew up in a world where when someone wished to declare the truthfulness of their assertion they’d simply say “you can take that to the bank” or when it was a sure thing they’d say “you can bank on it!” I grew up in a world where the government ‘guaranteed’ my deposits, my cash, or my nest egg – as long as I deposited it with a recognized bank or financial institution. But that was then…this is now.

Long memories

In the 1930s and 40s in the United States after the Great Depression, there was a perception that the destruction of individualism and community banking practices in favour of cookie-cutter branch banking approaches built on efficiency, sales, and transaction banking was a risk to the stability of the banking system.   Read More. . .

Blog by Consult Hyperion posted 21/09/2012 at 14:42.

Wallets, mobile wallets and hyper wallets

 [Dave Birch] Well, I think we're moving beyond the opening shots of the "wallet wars". There seems to be coalescing opinion that mobile payments by themselves are unlikely to generate the kind of revenues that get big organizations excited and that payments are merely table stakes in a much bigger game. This bigger game is about access to, and indeed control of, transactional data. So the payments have to be wrapped up in a bundle that will be attractive to the stakeholders, and attractive enough to manage lots of different kinds of transactions.

Indeed, businesses of all kinds, including big companies like Google, Microsoft and Sprint and small start-ups like GoPago and Scvngr, are hoping to profit from mobile payments — if only they can figure out what kind of system appeals to consumers and merchants.

[From The Campaign to Digitize Your Wallet Is Intensifying - NYTimes.com]

I was listening in on a webinar about this recently.  Read more…

Overreach

The latest mandate from Washington ordering religious charities to offer free contraceptive services (1); the cancelling of the Keystone XL Pipeline (2); the bypass of Congressional approval for appointments to the NLRB and the CFPB (3); and most recent the semi-reversal on the contraceptive issue which included a new dictate to insurance companies (4) to take up the cost of free contraceptive services. The incumbent in the White House has made several significant political blunders for apparent political motives and gains.

 Special Interest Groups

(1)     Women’s Rights lobby and minorities

(2)     Environmentalists

(3)     Labor unions and the anti-big bank lobby

(4)     Anti-insurance company lobby (almost everyone)

While one can simply call these political maneuvers to secure the votes of specific groups of special interest, the lack of concern over constitutional freedoms is alarming. But, let’s not make this a Democrat versus Republican thing. Let’s try an experiment and look at this situation as if George Bush did similar things and the potential political backlash one would expect.

To make this little experiment credible, one cannot simply say Bush would have ordered all religious organizations to provide free contraceptive services to their employees. Everyone knows he would never do that. So, we need to get to the essence of the backlash Obama is feeling on this issue. And, that issue is; “Does the U.S. Government have the right to demand that religious organizations take actions that would be in absolute opposition to their beliefs?”  So, what if Bush took an equally aggressive step and required a national non-denominational prayer each morning in all public and private schools across the country (special interest – 78.4% of all Americans who belong to a religion in the U.S.). After all, in the Muslim world morning prayers and prayers at four other times a day is part of their society’s routine, why not ours?  Now, to avoid Establishment Clause issues in the Constitution the prayer would not be specific to any religious group’s belief, but a prayer to “God” in general. And, the prayer would be for the betterment of the nation and its people to avoid any specific favoritism of a particular group.

On one hand, our pretend dictate from Bush is a bit watered down from our President’s recent dictate on many fronts. However, just for a moment, imagine the stories on the nightly news on all major networks, think of the speeches from left leaning politicians, and the marches of 1,000 or so (made to look like 10,000 or more on the news) in multiple cities and state capitals against having every kid in school in the country praying for a stronger nation and a better life for everyone. The noise would be deafening – even though nearly 80% of the country say they belong to one religion or another. It would truly seem like more than 20% of the population had a problem with Bush’s pretend dictate.

Maybe this experiment is for not. Bush would have never demanded all school kids say a prayer each morning even if it was focused on building a stronger country and help your fellow citizens. However, if our little experiment sharpens, even in the smallest way, our desires to defend our liberties and rights, it will have been worth the time to write and for you to read.

Playing Chicken with Religious Freedoms

From the media coverage you wouldn’t know that nearly a quarter of the U.S. population was just slighted by the Obama Administration. However, since this 22.2% of the population, or 77.7 million, people happen to be a religious group, it may be understandable.

In a January 20, 2012 press release from Health and Human Services, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Obama administration ordered non-profit religious organizations, hospitals, charities and the like who offer insurance to their employees to include abortion, contraception and other birth control methods as part of their health plans at no cost, deductible, or co-pay.

With this move the Administration struck a blow to the heart of the Catholic religion’s, and most other religions, long-held belief of the sanctity of life and its opposition to abortion. The Church’s staunch position against abortion and contraception has been a thorn in the back side of liberals for decades. Now, it appears that Obama is ready to “play chicken” with Catholics and other religious groups in the U.S. on how far the government can intruded into the “religious freedom” arena.

Freedom of Religion has been with our country since the colonial days. It was this desire to not be dictated to by a ruler as to what type of religion one could ascribe to that brought early settlers to our shores. In 1649 the colony of Maryland followed the Rhode Island colony’s actions in 1636 concerning freedom of religion when it enacted the Maryland Toleration Act. The Act essentially created the means for Catholics to exercise their faith without prosecution, “No person or persons…shall from henceforth be any waies troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof.”

As our country formed Freedom of Religion was codified in the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution. Article VI is the second mention of religion in our Constitution, which prevented the “religious test”; preventing the requirement that you must be from a specific religion in order to hold office. Overtime, these two freedoms have been challenged from those who wish to soften, re-write, or eliminate altogether the tie religious freedoms have in our country’s founding. Until now, religious liberties have held – with some slight bending now and again.

The latest challenge by the Obama Administration to force Catholic charities and other non-profit organizations associated with religion to offer all flavors of birth control up to and including abortion may just have crossed the line. Congregations across the country over the past several weekends have had the unusual call from their Bishops and Priests to speak out against what they believe to be an outright attack on their religious freedoms. They have encouraged their parishioners to oppose the move by the Administration and called on them to notify their Representatives and request that they sign on as co-sponsors to the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179).

As for the Obama Administration, this move will be embraced by a large majority of their liberal base, especially the Pro-Choice movement. So, from one perspective the political optics look good as Obama continues his re-election campaign. It would appear to us that this is a clever play by the Administration to challenge the actions of the Catholic Church while attempting to preserve “religious freedoms” in a watered down version. The Supreme Court has held that “actions” like polygamy and sacrifice, while they may very well be part of a religion, can be regulated by government. So, it may be true too that the government can prevent a religious organization from barring access to certain medical treatments.

Whatever comes of this action by the Administration is yet to be seen. The Obama Administration and liberals are betting on the fact that this move will not mobilize the Catholic base. But if it does mobilize the base, nearly one-quarter of the American population will become a formidable opponent in November. 

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