Photo: YUO
The digital creep, piece by piece.
QR CODES
First they were normalised as a way to track COVID-19 pandemic movements, and now they are rising again.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has flagged QR code-enabled transactions and other “innovative payment technologies” as possible ‘solutions’ to ‘trim the cost of paying for things’.
A senior RBA official wants to “unleash a wave of innovation in the retail payments sector” in a bid to drive down fees for small businesses and consumers, and QR codes for payments are leading the charge.
In a speech to the Australian Financial Review’s Banking Summit, RBA Head of Payments Policy Ellis Connolly said other countries in the region were already experimenting with non-card electronic retail payment systems.
Photo: Natalie B.
As it stands now, ‘tap and go’ payments default to Visa and Mastercard, which charge the highest transaction fees to merchants.
In countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, merchants can provide QR codes that their customers use to pay by transferring from their bank accounts via fast payment systems.
QR codes are scannable images that can be read by smartphone cameras to unlock the information.
Connolly says a “comparable technology already in use in Australia” could unlock “similar levels of innovation”.
This ‘comparable’ technology is known as the New Payments Platform (NPP) “PayTo“, which in this scenario would ‘allow for safe transactions from bank accounts and can be paired with QR codes to enable convenient, low-cost transactions’.
NPP is part of the RBA’s focus to bring down merchant costs to give users an alternative to cards online and instore purchases.
Introduced to Australia mid-last year, Connolly said the payment service was yet to take off but “use by the major banks should deliver the critical mass needed for the service to flourish”.
Last month, the RBA and the federal government flagged reforms to “level the playing field for new payment technologies”.
The reforms included updating payment system laws and developing a new ‘strategic plan’ for Australia’s payments system.
The costs incurred by businesses to process payments mean merchants to higher payment costs.
Now, QR codes are one of the leading ‘solutions’ to solve this problem.
But, as we know, this is all part of a much larger agenda for full spectrum digital control.
DIGITAL DYSTOPIA
While most headlines focus on the RBA lifting interest rates — a result of millions of NPC Australians deciding to stay inside afraid of a bogeyman virus at a cost of billions per day to the economy — most remain distracted from their other moves.
In March, we covered the announcement by the RBA that they are looking to establish “use cases” for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), saying they hope to “determine the economic benefits” it can have through a new research project.
The project includes pilots that will explore:
- CBDC distribution
- Offline payments via CBDCs
- Cross border settlement and custody.
- GST automation.
- Tokenised bills
- Construction supply chain payments
- Superstream payments, among a few others.
The RBA are pushing for a future that includes QR code payments with a centralised digital currency.
Ten years ago, you would be called a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for even suggesting such a notion.
Now, as a cashless society and digital identity systems approach, the RBA is heavily involved in this transition.
Australians must raises their voices and say “no!” to these plans before they are implemented.
For when they are, linked into sophisticated smart city infrastructure and national databases, we will se world that is unrecognisable to that out of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Funny that the former head of Microsoft warned this could be the case by 2024, which is just a year from now.
Let your voices be heard and resist the biometric dystopia!
What do you think of these moves by the RBA?
Be sure to leave your thoughts below!
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Another surreptitious step in the totalitarian tiptoe toward slavery on the digital plantation. Thanks for nothing, Cousin Candy and fellow RBA board members. I’ll be stealing the coconuts from the plantation before I ever become a slave on it…
The King James Bible Revelation ch 13 v 16 translates, “to receive a mark IN their right hand or IN their forehead’ as opposed to most newer translations which say ‘ON’ !
The majority of people are right handed and many have ‘smart’ phones that are held IN their right hand.
I suggest it’s not too large a step to be required to have an electronic transceiver Implant. Without which one will not he able to buy or sell.
Fantasy? You decide.
Render unto the Globalists that which is yours.
This is all gravitating toward control of humans through artificial intelligence and eventually absolute obedience and slavery servanthood! Obey or extinct…..part of control and depopulation Elite agenda! Revelation 13:16,17 is closer than we think!
3 and a Half Years ago! – ‘Media release’ – ‘RESEARCH PROJECT’ – 2023 = LOL!
Head of Payments Policy Department Friday, January 31, 2020
Reserve Bank of Australia
By email: pysubmissions@rba.gov.au
Dear Sir/Madam
Review of Retail Payments Regulation: Issues Paper
Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with a submission in response to the above-mentioned Issues
Paper.
Blockchain Australia is the peak industry body that represents Australian businesses and business
professionals participating in the digital economy through blockchain technology.
Blockchain Australia aims to encourage the responsible adoption of blockchain technology by industry and
governments across Australia as a means to drive innovation in service delivery across all sectors of the
economy.
We are convinced that the use of blockchain technology will drive a wave of innovation and business
process transformation that will transform markets in almost every sector of the global economy – currency
and payments platforms not least among them.
Our ambition is to see an Australia that leads the world in the adoption of blockchain technology that has
transformed the economy and society to achieve significantly greater competitiveness, efficiency, service
quality, social engagement and employment.
Given the above our response to the Issues Paper is limited to the central bank digital currency (CBDC) and
stablecoin issues raised in the Issus Paper. These do not align easily to the specific questions in the issues
paper but can all broadly be regarded as a response to Question 1.
As the Issues Paper notes, a number of Central Banks and payments regulators around the world are paying
serious attention to the potential for blockchain technology to be used to re-architect payments systems to
provide greater speed, efficiency and regulatory transparency. This trend is bolstered by initiatives to create
‘global stablecoins’ – most notably the Libra project. In the view of Blockchain Australia, it is extremely likely
that some of these initiatives will begin to roll out novel payments approaches in the medium term (5 to 10
years) and that it is therefore essential that Australia be an active participant in global initiatives to define the
scope, functionality and regulatory framework of such initiatives. A ‘wait and see’ approach runs the risk of
seeing Australia excluded from processes that may redefine the global payments architecture.
Blockchain Australia believes that the RBA should seek to actively engage in four potential use cases (in
descending order of priority):
1. Wholesale Settlements
Blockchain Australia supports the RBA’s steps to experiment with a CBDC for wholesale
settlements. This is an obvious and compelling use case that could significantly reduce reconciliation
costs & time and free up capital by reducing the need to hold funds in a suspense account.
http://www.blockchainaustralia.org | ABN 63 169 053 534 | PO Box 21122 World Square, Sydney, NSW 2002
2. International Business Payments
International Payments by businesses are a key area where a CBDC (or network of national
CBDCs) could significantly streamline costs and enhance both regulatory transparency and data
linkages. Blockchain-enabled supply chain and trade facilitation processes are already being
developed and including a CBDC or global stablecoin as the native means of settlement within such
systems is a natural extension of those efforts. The People’s Bank of China has announced projects
in this area as part of the broader Belt and Road initiative.
3. International Retail Payments
International retail payments for consumers and remittances remain expensive and slow and the
associated AML/CTF processes are often cumbersome and not particularly effective. A CBDC or
global stablecoin could address this gap with particular benefits for developing countries. AML/CTF
data for both ends of a transaction can be securely linked to every individual transaction.
4. Domestic Retail Payments
A broader CBDC for retail payments is a lower priority – especially for a country such as Australia
with a sophisticated payments infrastructure. One area that may be worthy of investigation is
whether a CBDC would provide a more effective and lower cost method for conditional government
payments such as welfare benefits or grants schemes.
We recognise that, with the possible exception of the Wholesale Settlements use case, these areas for
research and experimentation could be regarded as “Horizon Two” innovations whereas the bulk of the focus
of the RBA must necessarily be on Horizon One opportunities to enhance existing architecture.
However, Horizon Two can rapidly become Horizon One and given the potential for significantly
transformative innovation and the engagement of very large economic stakeholders, it is essential that the
RBA also dedicate resources to these opportunities. Australia should be a leader not a laggard in defining
the future global payments architecture.
In addition to the announcements out of China, we note the following recent announcements:
• Governing the Coin: World Economic Forum Announces Global Consortium for Digital Currency
Governance – https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/01/governing-the-coin-world-economic-forumannounces-global-consortium-for-digital-currency-governance/
• Central bank group to assess potential cases for central bank digital currencies –
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2020/html/ecb.pr200121_1~e99d7946d6.en.html
http://www.blockchainaustralia.org | ABN 63 169 053 534 | PO Box 21122 World Square, Sydney, NSW 2002
• Central Banks and the future of digital money (Consensys Whitepaper recently released at the World
Economic Forum) – https://pages.consensys.net/central-banks-and-the-future-of-digital-money
We would be pleased to discuss any aspect of our submission with you.
Yours sincerely
Nicholas Giurietto
CEO and Managing Director
Blockchain Australia
Wellness.