Digital Money Forum

Gershon and Parquet, AFFE

[Dave Birch] Edward Gershon, the CEO of Amalgamated Finance For Erurope (AFFE) and his Compliance Officer Arnold Parquet have written an book about the banking crisis from the inside. The book, an excellent present for stockings of all size, helps the rest of us to learn lessons and plan more effectively for the future. In this podcast they reflect on some of the key lessons from the crisis.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

Koichi Tagawa, Sony

[Dave Birch] Koichi Tagawa is the General Manager of Global Standards and Industry Relations Department that is in charge of technology standards and technology industry relations of the FeliCa Business. Since 2002, he has supported the popularization of NFC and FeliCa from the standardization point of view. He actively contributed to the establishment of the NFC Forum, holding the position of Vice-Chairman from the start of the Forum in 2004 until becoming Chairman in September 2008. He enthusiastically continues to contribute to the enhancement of the NFC ecosystem throughout the contactless application industry.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

Janine Firpo, IFC

[Dave Birch] Janine Firpo is President of Sevak Solutions, a nonprofit company that she co-founded to promote inclusive systems for the delivery of financial services to the world’s 1.7 billion urban and rural poor. Janine is based in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she is working with International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, helping regional advisory teams to accelerate the development and large-scale roll-out of mobile money solutions. In this podcast, she talks about mobile money in developing markets and the practicalities of managing and regulating agent networks.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

Jeff Slawsky, Slawsky & Associates

[Dave Birch] Jeff Slawsky has spent thirty years in the US financial services industry and wrote the book on developing and managing a successful payment cards business. Literally: it's called "Developing and Managing a Successful Payment Cards Business" and he wrote it with Forum friend Samee Zafar back in 2005. In this podcast, Jeff reflects on the seismic shifts in the US payment card business and speculates about the longer-term impact on regulatory, social and business changes in the American market.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

Karin Huber, Mobilkom

[Dave Birch] Karin Huber is a Senior Product Manager at Mobilkom Austria and is responsible for marketing mobile payments. Vienna is one of the very few places in the world where real customers are walking into real shops and buying real NFC handsets, which makes Karin's experience almost unique. In this podcast, she explains some of Mobilkoms thinking -- in particular, why they decided to obtain their own banking licence rather than partner with a retail bank -- and some of their very innovative products.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

Dominique Buysschaert, PayFair

[Dave Birch] Dominique Buysschaert is the man behind PayFair, a candidate for the proposed "third scheme" in European debit and co-founder and CEO of European Payment Solutions, the company set up to deliver it. He was a member of the Brussels bar for 20 years (1978 – 1998), as partner in different major law firms, and then became General Counsel for Carrefour Belgium (1998 – 2006), secretary of the board of directors and member of the management committee. He represented Carrefour at FEDIS, the Belgian federation of large retailers. In this podcast he explains how PayFair works and why retailers might be attracted to it.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

Eiso Kant, Twollars

[Dave Birch] Eiso Kant is the CEO and Founder of the Spanish startup Twollars. Twollars is a kind of virtual currency that exists in the world of Twitter and it works on new innovative products to encourage publishers and companies to allocate part of their marketing budgets to good causes. It hopes to creating marketing value while while encouraging donating. In this podcast Eiso explains the concept and speculates as to where it might go.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

cashless, innovation, internet, podcast

Sarah Rotman, CGAP

[Dave Birch] Sarah Rotman works on the project and research agenda of the CGAP Technology Program, designing innovative projects in branchless banking that deliver financial services to low-income customers. Her research projects include the business case for agents and future scenarios of branchless banking. Prior to joining CGAP in 2008, she interned with Urwego Opportunity Microfinance Bank in Kigali, Rwanda. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin and later worked for a development nonprofit on education projects in Haiti and Africa. Rotman has a master's degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University. In this podcast she shares some of her conclusions about e-money cash replacement schemes (including Mondex, Simpay and Movilpago) from the CGAP report on Going Cashless at Point of Sale which she co-wrote with Ignacio Mas.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

cashless, history, podcast

Willem Buiter, LSE

[Dave Birch] The noted economist Willem Buiter was a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from June 1997-May 2000. He joined the London School of Economics as a chair in the European Institute in September 2005. He writes the "Maverecon" blog for the Financial Times. In this podcast, he discusses some reasons for getting rid of cash.

Amongst other things, he says that no-one hold 500 euro notes for honest purposes and that there is no reason for a developed economy such as the UK to issue currency at all...

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

cashless, crime and fraud, money

Liisa Kanniainen, Mobey Forum

[Dave Birch] Liisa Kanniainen works for Nordea Bank and is the Executive Director of the Mobey Forum, developing cross-industry collaboration to expand and shape the mobile financial services market. In Nordea she is in charge of mobile financial services at corporate level. In this podcast she explains the Forum's mission and talks about its current workplan.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

contactless and nfc, mobile, money, podcast