Everybody Must Get Banked

But I would not feel so all alone....everybody must get banked (stoned)!...Bob Dylan, Rainy Day Woman.

Who is not banked?

The Unbanked. 

What is the reply to the old business question; "Who are our customers?".

Is the more important question for business growth; "Who are not our customers?"

The Unbanked are not a bank's customers.

This is an abstract of  Unbanked and Underbanked Consumers in the U.S., 4th Edition
The abstract is not the report but it gives a good look into the probable content.

The full report is something a banker can read for the price of $4,500.00.  Delivered on line.  Put it in the shopping basket and checkout.  Its greatest value is probably not telling bankers what they already know but providing a certifiable reference validity to support decisions based on cost effectiveness and future return on investment aimed at....yes, of course:  Everybody Must Get Banked!

What might stand in the way of extracting big bucks to the banksters from the Unbanked?  

The Postal System providing banking services to the Unbanked.  Bernie Sanders supports this.  The number he uses however is 100 million people.  Careful with the numbers, Bernie.  That number is probably more an estimate of potential users both banked and unbanked.  It is not the commonly cited more or less number of around 10 million Unbanked adults.

Who else supports the Postal System providing services for the Unbanked (as well as the banked, anyone can use the service)?

Bloomberg  That is a financial publication.  Banksters read it.  Bloomberg supports government services to the Unbanked???  Has hell frozen over?  Maybe on the East coast.  Yes, Bloomberg supports the idea but its proposed solution is that the Post Office be a store front for commercial banking operations:  "There's a better way. Instead of competing with the private sector, the postal service could offer a curated selection of third-party financial services, of the Bluebird and LendUp variety." Why share the business with the Post Office when it is better to take it all.  Privatize the Post Office.  That's a bank plan for the banked as well as the unbanked.  Between the banked and the unbanked what is left?  Looks like total market domination!

The Big Business dream.  But wait!  The eternal business question remains.  When we get all Banked and Unbanked adults under the coverage of commercial bank system accounts who are then in the category of "not our customers"?  Who do we target? 

Watch for banks advertising in cartoons.

But I digress because it amuses me in getting to the point.

When everyone is banked and there are no "Unbanked".  Every banked person or entity has a bank account.  Identified by a bank account number.  The bank account number by default becomes a universal identifier.  Identification numbers are increasingly linking.  For example: ...data published in the ($4,500.00) report show that, as of 2015, some 93% of unbanked adults have a mobile phone...almost two-thirds have a smartphone".  That is the Unbanked population.  Probably the same for the Banked, maybe more.

Bank accounts tie into so many other personal data element identifiers including an increasing number of biometric markers associated with accounts for security purposes.

Bob's lyrics must be revised to a more fundamental commonality than "Everybody must get Banked".

"Everybody must get Accounted."

That means everyone must have a unique bank account number to transact with a medium of exchange that is only digital and must be associated to specific entity or human individual account.

What is the exception to that rule?

Blockchain Anonymity  This link is only one example. The first one on a Google search that looked like it was good enough to make the point.

Bankers have a love hate relationship with Anonymity depending on if it works to their advantage or not.  Like many other things.  Fill in the blanks with those other things and they all boil down to this.

(Insert something here)...for me... but not for thee.  That is a business model.  Works like this: Money for me but not for thee.......ok, enough to keep the host alive. 

Just one example:  Anonymity for me (and my big bucks customers) ...but not for thee.

Blockchain Anonymity cuts both ways.

A general rule business rule, "Know Your Customer" applies to banks.  In a blockchain digital currency system trust is in the blockchain system not the bank linking a currency owner to its account in the Swift system.

This survey reports the degree of trust in banks. 75%.  Just to make trust in banks look good the next line is Telcoms.  1%

Banks have a lot to lose if people put their trust in a blockchain digital currency system in which transactors are anonymous. Customers may use a bank sponsored blockchain currency system but will they be anonymous to the bank?  That means the bank would not know its customer and be able to mine all the data related to that customer?

Are bankers skinny?

Fat chance!

It is a conundrum for the banking system.  How to use the blockchain technology to serve itself but not shoot itself in the foot with it.

Bob Dylan would probably like the revised lyrics:  "Everybody must get Anonymized" There is something socially rebellious in that.

Banksters would not like that and neither would the NSA.  The NSA has a business model too.  Know Your Customers.  Knowledge for me (to only divulge under court order like a bank) but not for thee...

How to deal with an open public ledger crypto blockchain technology.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

It is a puzzlement!

Either the transactor in a blockchain currency system is linked to their transaction and is discoverable at some level of security or.......the transactor is not.

Binary relationships and an "exclusive either/or'' True/False or Yes/No choice between two things like Known vs Anonymous user Identification system is not a puzzlement.  It is a rock and a hard place.  The solution to have one's cake and eat it too must be a clever one.   It will probably not be a public one.  That is a binary relationship also:  Public/Secret.

Blockchain technology is going to change the game.  The rules are either going to be public or private.  It depends on who has the power to make the rules.  That is an even bigger game and we are all watching it play and know who the big power players are on the field and neither one is the home team. They are playing with our ball by their rules.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lucy+football

Banks did not want the low paying return on Commercial banking.  They wanted to keep it but break down the wall between Commercial retail banking and wholesale Finance.  They got that in order to make big bucks on Finance.  They got that.  Let them keep it.  Regulate it.  Prosecute and execute criminals that break the law.  I never knew I was such a law and order guy!

Take the burdensome low return Commercial banking function, the one that deals with common people's day to day use of the medium of exchange away from the banks.  Give it to the Postal System in the form of a blockchain digital currency.  Most of it is done on line.  That is the trend.  However there will always be a brick and mortar site in every populated area.  Unless the sell of of property to private enterprise removes them.  That of course is a private enterprise business model game plan.

Whatever the big banks are doing with the application of blockchain technology is being done through R3.   An 11 bank test of applying the technology to finance was reported 4 days ago.
Two days ago:  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/545806/microsoft-bets-that-bitcoin-style-blockchains-will-be-big-business/

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541686/banks-embrace-bitcoins-heart-but-not-its-soul/

"Major financial institutions like some technical features of Bitcoin but are building their own versions that leave out the digital cash and built-in economics." 


Embracing the heart but not the soul.  Interesting headline.  Prescient perhaps.  The heart is the physical engine of the body.  The more abstract "soul" is in my view the somewhat less conceptually abstract thing called "mind". 

In a match up between mind and body the mind controls body like a driver controls the car.  The mind of the system is what currency is.  The body is the vehicle of what currency does.  Mind drives body to perform its functions.  Mind is the subject.  Body is the object.  Like a dog wags it tail.  It takes a powerful tail to wag the dog but it is being done until the dog gets fed up with being wagged, chasing its tail.

The biggest disruption of blockchain technology is setting the stage where the tail does not have as much power to wag the dog.  Not only in finance.

R3 announced its association with the banks to test blockchain  applications in Sept. 2015.  4 days ago R3 announces test results involving 11 banks.  Things are moving fast!

Privacy for me... Like I guessed at earlier in this blog entry.............
"In theory, a system like that could be built on top of Bitcoin. But some of its features are not a good fit for the financial industry, such as how its blockchain is public, says Brown. “Customers tend not to want their private financial transactions visible to everybody,” he says. Instead, banks could get together to operate a semi-private blockchain, powered by servers distributed between them, and accessible only to trusted institutions, says Brown." 

Listen up Big Finance.  Here is the deal on who is in charge.

We might be at the end of the line.  The bottom of the food chain, so to speak.  We are in charge however.

It is our ball.  Our money by our sovereign right.  It is what we use as the medium of exchange in the course of our lives.  We have the right to the ball and the system in which it is played.  If you do not want to play with our ball in a mutual game on a level playing field then we take the ball and go home.  That, of course is to no advantage to either of us.

Let's negotiate like labor and management used to do before things got out of hand in the game of We the People vs We the few with big bucks and power to buy what We the People elect.  There is some negotiating to be done with your proxies in Washington DC but if we stick it to you we will by association stick it to them.  They will stick it to you first, did it once before if you remember, when it they realize which way the winds are blowing.   They need to be reminded of the direction and what blowing winds can bring.

R3CEV LLC is working for big finance to create a closed system based on the Ethereum network.

http://r3cev.com/

http://www.coindesk.com/r3cev-distributed-ledger-wall-street/

Big money is flowing into this fast.  This report from yesterday: http://bitcoinist.net/ethereums-market-cap-takes-the-number-three-spot/

Yes, but what about the buffalo?

That is a reference to Arte Gibson.  On the show "Laugh In" during a standard routine he would interject an off the wall serious question:  "What about the Buffalo?".  the routine would stop for a moment then go on.  It was funny in an abrupt attempt to change the subject to something unrelated.

What about China?

China is investigating blockchain.  Maybe China dances to the tune of We the People in the People's Republic more than we do.  At least has more of the general welfare in consideration.  What if China introduces blockchain medium of exchange digital crypto currency system and integrates it with a blockchain finance system?  An open ledger system in which all the players are publicly known?

Everybody sees what money everybody has and what they are doing with it.  Where it comes from.  Where it goes.

What if a population of 1.5 billion people wanted all their money to be on a public ledger where the identity of any person or entity using the monetary system is public knowledge on a public ledger?  Where every person must be linked to their money in a block chain account.  Is that social engineering?  By consent or demand of the People or by the dictate of the People's Republic Government.

Just a stray buffalo thought at this point.  What if everybody knew as much about all my money transactions as I do and I knew the same about them.  Would we all start fighting each other to get what they have?  Question the legitimacy of where the money came from?  Maybe not if all our dealings are fair and square.  Interesting thought.  What would happen as a result?

Time to go out the door and enjoy the day.