When fintech goes (disastrously) wrong
We at Alphaville have a reputation for being, let’s say, a bit wary when it comes to financial innovation. Some might call our particular brand of wariness Luddism, but we prefer to think of it as healthy scepticism (with a dash of FUD-peddling thrown in now and again for good measure).
You might even have seen this cartoon, from webcomic Cyanide and Happiness (we can neither confirm nor deny whether this accurately reflects the hiring process at AV Towers):
So you probably think that, when it comes to our personal lives, all of us are pretty strongly averse to anything carrying even the merest hint of fintech.
But you’d be wrong. Yes, there are those among us (who shan’t be named) who are never without at least £50 in cash in our wallets, and who wouldn’t be seen dead hailing anything other than a cash-accepting black cab. But some of us are actually regular users of all kinds of fintech apps and services (though that does not mean we think the providers of these services have viable business models).
But sometimes our embrace of the digital era comes back to bite us in the proverbial. Because as we have pointed out before, with new innovation comes -- pretty much always -- new problems.
And it is with that in mind that you should read our foray into the world of personal finance. Over on the main FT today you can read a blow-by-blow (FREE TO READ!) account of how one of us ended up being labelled a criminal because of our penchant for using Apple Pay to pay for basically everything.
An excerpt, to whet your appetites:
It all started one October afternoon last year, when a bus inspector asked to see my £1.50 ticket. I had tapped into the bus with my iPhone using Apple Pay, but alas, in the five minutes since I’d boarded, my phone had run out of juice, so I had no means of proving that I had paid.
The inspector took my details and I didn’t think much more about it. Until December 28, that is, when, as I set out towards celebration number 103 of the Christmas season, I noticed a rather serious-looking letter addressed to me lying on the hall rug.
Upon opening it, I discovered I had been charged with failing to produce a valid ticket on a Transport for London service — and that I had 21 days to plead either “guilty or not guilty”. TfL said it had sent a letter ahead of this, but I never received it. This all felt a bit much for a time of year when the most stressful thing I normally face is working out if I can fit in a fifth mince pie, or whether it’s best to leave it at four.
Thankfully, The National Association of Mansplainers is holding its AGM in the comments section, and is helpfully telling us how this unfortunate series of events could have been avoided.