Closed Loops and Private Gateways: Money, Technology and the Public

Interest in Payment Bill Maurer Dean, School of Social Sciences Department of Anthropology UC Irvine

MoneyLab, Amsterdam, March 2014

19th c state consolidation of money

Distinction between the token used as money and the infrastructures used to exchange those tokens The lingo: freight or token vs. rail In the US: first, stamping out wildcat banking; then ending interchange on checks to facilitate interstate commerce

Enter the private rails

It was a revelation then. We were not in the credit card business. ... We were really in the business of the exchange of monetary value

Dee Hock, founder of BankAmericard/Visa

Today: card networks rails vs. telecommunications pipes

Transformations in payment (not moneyyet) First the Internet then the mobile carriers

PayPal riding the rails

M-Pesa and airtime

Disruptors in payment and in money?

PayPal and M-Pesa are closed payment communities Gift and prepaid cardsno bank account AmEx Pointsprivate token Bitcointoken/rail collapse into one Reputational currenciesrelationships as value

What is (the future of) money?

Money as advertising/marketing? capturing the last commonscash purchases at the point of salefor data mining Money as decentralized ledger, a (public) account of all the worlds transactions? There is a battle about to be waged over who controls that ledger! Is there a public interest in payment? Do we need common carrier rules for money?

the provision of money by private companies over private infrastructure risks undermining an important function of the public sector, namely, that the means of value transfer are not owned by anyone (World Bank 2012: 71).

Rights and remedies

Who holds / controls the distribution and authorization of credibility? What recourse is there when things go wrong?

good old contract (theres no chargebacks for bitcoin!)

Is there a pubic interest in payment?

Oh, Canada!

Thank you! Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion Intel Science and Technology Center in Social Computing School of Social Sciences, UC Irvine