Figures from merchant services company Worldpay Inc show that for the first time, more payments were made in UK shops using contactless than Chip and PIN over the 12 months from June 2017.

Jump This Year

Worldpay reports a 30% rise in contactless payments over the last year. A MasterCard survey from September concurs with the trend found by Worldpay by showing that nearly half of all UK payments (including cash) were contactless-enabled.

Big Rises – Fashion Retail

According to the survey, fashion retailers (415% year-on-year increase in contactless payments), and even betting shops have seen large increases in contactless payments, particularly using smart-phones. Clothes and footwear sales have seen a 500% increase in contactless payments from smart-phones.

Benefits

For the card user, contactless payments offer greater convenience because of the speed and ease of transactions. As well as providing positive reinforcement, contactless also allows people to avoid the negative aspects of shopping, such as eliminating the need to obtain and carry cash, and avoiding queuing and lost time waiting to pay.

For the retailer, contactless means cost and time savings, and having to deal with less cash, but it also means the need to invest heavily in new payments technology in order to make it easier and quicker for customers to securely complete transactions in-store.

Drivers

Drivers of the growth in contactless have been the convenience and speed that customers experience, the fact that card issuers are including contactless with customer cards, and the fact that most retailers are able and are happy to take contactless payments, even for relatively small amounts.

Also, one of the key drivers for contactless payments via smart-phones has been the rise in the use of mobile wallets e.g. Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay, which have seen a 114% increase on the high street over the last year. In fact, another Worldpay survey from last year revealed that over 50% of shoppers believe that their phones could replace their wallets within the next five years. This also illustrates how we, as consumers, are using our smart-phones to help manage more and more important areas of our lives.

There has also been a big increase in confidence and trust in contactless by consumers as they have become used to using contactless on a regular basis without experiencing any of the initially predicted negative consequences. Confidence levels in the marketplace can be illustrated not just by the huge increase in the number of transactions, but also by the fact that in a Worldpay Survey, also from 2017, 65% of consumers said they’d happily make a contactless purchase of up to £50, instead of the current £30.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This is another milestone in the rise of contactless that illustrates the main payment trends in the market. Firstly, back in June, UK Finance announced that, driven by contactless, the number of debit card payments had overtaken those of cash. Now we are at the stage where not only has contactless overtaken Chip & PIN for the first time, but contactless using smart-phone wallets is seriously on the rise. Contactless provides speed and convenience for customers as well as retailers. There are even some traditionally cash-based businesses in cities e.g. cafes, that only accept contactless and not cash. It is now possible to imagine a time in the not-too-distant future where wallets are no longer needed to carry cash, and tills (for holding cash) and ATMs with just a cash dispensing function starting to become much scarcer. Convenience and speed have always been desirable for consumers when shopping, and contactless allows retailers to offer those benefits for most of our daily purchases.

UK businesses are looking for a boost in the speed and scope of communications in the form of 5G, but how soon will having a 5G phone that delivers all the 5G benefits become a reality, and what will it take to make it happen?

What Is 5G?

5G is the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications. i.e. you use it to call, text and (when not connected Wi-Fi network) get online. It is thought that 5G should be much faster than previous generations, and may open up new opportunities for mobile data, stimulate innovation, and make UK companies even more competitive.

5G Phones

Tech and communications commentators are quick to point out, for phone manufactures, manufacturing 5G phones will be a slightly different and more complex proposition. For example:

• 5G phones are more complex e.g. more complex antenna. These mean extra production costs which are likely to be passed on (with first-wave prices) to customers. It is thought that 5G compatible phones will be priced between £450-£540, with higher prices for leading brand models e.g. Samsung, Apple and Huawei.
• Miniaturisation of a more complex 5G phone presents challenges. The first generation of 5G phones may, therefore, be a little larger than a normal smart-phone.
• Launching new handsets before the new network has been rolled out could simply annoy buyers and damage brand reputation.
• The first 5G smart-phones will need two modems, one standalone 5G modem, and one that still works on 4G and older networks (for when 4G isn’t available).

What About The Network?

The 5G network is, of course, the crucial element in giving customers the 5G experience that we’ve been promised. Some of the key points to remember about the 5G network are that:

• The frequency spectrum needed for 5G is finite, and even with additional spectrum that has been auctioned to the UK’s mobile networks, more will be needed. This may mean some crowded traffic in the first wave, with things not improving until more auctions have taken place.
• Other technologies will need to be developed and trialled. Lessons learned about 5G in other countries (e.g. China) will take time to be noted and incorporated in the UK network to help it deliver maximum benefits.
• There will be 2 different, location-based frequencies. Sub-6GHz (gigahertz) are likely to be the first offered to users, and there will also be an expensive high-frequency “millimetre wave” (mmWave) for use in densely populated areas. In short, this could mean limitations on where an owner can use their shiny new 5G phone.

When?

Taking all this into account, phone manufacturers have been publicly offering estimates of when their 5G phone models will be available. For example, Motorola’s 5G add-on for its Moto Z3 smart-phone are due in early 2019, Samsung may launch their first 5G smart-phone in August 2019, and Huawei’s 5G model could be with us by mid-2019.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The same increased speed and lower latency of 5G that allows downloading films and games in seconds and watching them without any buffering, is also likely to provide many new and innovative opportunities, and could help provide a boost to new industries. For example, it will help to boost virtual and augmented reality, provide greater connectivity to IoT and smart devices, and help with all kinds of services e.g. smart bins and smart lighting, and remote healthcare services. The growing autonomous vehicle market could also benefit as 5G provides the constant, guaranteed connection that they need. Those companies operating delivery drone / robot services e.g. Amazon may also get a boost from reliable and powerful 5G connections.

Many different types of businesses could benefit from improved connectivity with remote workers or with salespeople in remote areas. Also, the news from an O2 forecast is that 5G could deliver time savings that could bring £6 billion a year in productivity savings in the UK, and that 5G-enabled tools and smart items could save UK householders £450 a year in food, council and fuel bills.

After the US and Brazil, the UK has become the next country to be subject to Facebook’s new rules that require those who wish to place a political advert on the social media platform to verify their identity and say who is funding the advert.

Verification

The new rule in the UK means that anyone who wishes a place an advert relating to a live political issue or promoting a UK political candidate, referencing political figures, political parties, elections, legislation before Parliament and past referenda that are the subject of national debate, will need to prove their identity, and prove that they are based in the UK. This will require them to have their passport / driving licence / resident permit checked by and authorised third-party organisation. The adverts they post will also have to carry a “Paid for by” disclaimer to enable Facebook users to see who they are engaging with when viewing the ad.

Political Advert Archive Too

The “Paid for by” link next to each political advert is linked through to a publicly searchable archive / library of political adverts. The archive / library shows a range of the ad’s budget and number of people reached, and the other ads that Page is running, and previous ads from the same source.

An advert archive of this kind was first launched by Facebook in the US back in May with the plan of making any ads published after May 7th 2018 available to view for up to seven years.

Why?

The rules on political advertising are being introduced in response to interference in the last US election and the UK referendum by state-funded actors from foreign powers (Russia has been accused), who posted adverts and content on Facebook in an attempt to influence the outcomes of both.

For example, the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) has released evidence of thousands of adverts which ran on Facebook and Instagram leading up to the 2016 US elections. It has emerged that these adverts were purchased by the Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), and ran between 2015 and 2017.

Also, in the UK, it was revealed that Facebook harvested the personal details of 87 million Facebook users without their explicit consent, and shared those details with London-based political Consulting Firm Cambridge Analytica, which is alleged to have used that data to target political messages and advertising in the last US presidential election campaign.

Also, harvested Facebook user data was shared with Aggregate IQ, a Data Company which worked with the ‘Vote Leave’ campaign in the run-up to the Brexit Referendum.

Report Fake News

The new Facebook political advert rules and the searchable archive / library mean that Facebook users will also be able to report a political ad as fake news.

Other Measures

Facebook has made it known that it is taking many other measures to combat fake news and political interference via its platform. This includes an ongoing program of taking down suspect accounts and pages (more than 500 pages and 250 accounts are reported to have been taken down in the last week), and allocating a trustworthiness score to some members to help manage misinformation issues.

Another tech giant, Microsoft, has also been seen to take steps to protect US democracy by introducing a pilot secure email service called ‘AccountGuard’ specifically for use by election candidates.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Facebook is likely to have lost a huge amount of trust among users due to a number of high profile issues and scandals, not least of which was its sharing of the personal data of its users with Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ, and how that data was then used for political influence.

With the US mid-term elections just around the corner, and with the UK in a state of uncertainty over the consequences of the referendum vote for Brexit, preventing other states from interfering in the host country’s democratic processes is a hot topic, and something that Facebook doesn’t want to be associated with. Being seen to take positive, pro-active, pro-democratic measures such requiring much greater transparency from political advertisers on its platform could go some way to improving Facebook’s battered reputation in this area.

Facebook still has a long way to go, however, particularly since the recent massive hack, the reverberations of which could go on for a long time in the form of more cyber-crime targeted at Facebook users whose details from Facebook and other apps using the Facebook login were stolen.

Microsoft’s lesser-known co-founder, Paul Allen, who left the company in 1982, has died aged 65 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (lymphatic cancer), with news of his death bringing praise for his generosity as a philanthropist.

School Friends To Billionaires

School friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen set up Microsoft in April 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In fact, it was Allen who was credited as coming up with the name Microsoft after the pair rejected the name of “Allen & Gates” because it sounded like a law firm or consulting company. Allen chose ‘Microsoft’ because it was an amalgamation of the words ‘microcomputer’ and ‘software’, and because the pair were originally working on making software to run on microcomputers.

The beginnings of success for Allen and Gates happened when, after re-writing software for the world’s first home computer, they bought Dos (disk operating system) from Digital Research and licensed it to Big Blue for IBM PC operating system.

After leaving Microsoft in 1982, Mr Allen set up media and communications investment firm Vulcan in 1986.

Generous

As well as being someone who enjoyed his own wealth and interest in music and the arts by hosting some memorable parties, Paul Allen was well known for his substantial generosity to some worthy causes. For example, Mr Allen donated a staggering $2bn+ to many causes including ocean health, homelessness and science. His interest in using his own resources to create a better world for all were well known.

Sports Fan

Mr Allen also had a keen interest in sport and was the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team and Seattle Seahawks football team. Mr Allen saved the Seahawks from having to relocate, and this intervention is partly credited for helping them to reach three Super Bowls, and win the NFL championship in 2013.

Several Battles With Cancer

Paul Allen had several battles with cancer, firstly in 1983 with the blood cancer Hodgkin’s disease, then in 2009 with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and finally with the final return of the non-Hodgkin lymphoma this year, the complications of which caused his death.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The results of Paul Allen’s working life now form an essential part of all businesses as he is regarded as being one of the key founders of home computing, which led to PCs being a tool used in nearly all offices and led to the growth of whole industries. Microsoft Corporation, the company he co-founded with his school friend Bill Gates, has gone on to be a multi-national company worth around $800 billion, and third only in value behind trillion dollar tech companies Apple and Amazon.

The Microsoft Windows Operating System for desktop is by far the most popular operating system in the world, with the MS OS second only to Android in popularity for all platforms. In this sense, Paul Allen’s contribution to the world of computing and how it affects all of our lives will continue long into the future.

His work in promoting, helping, and donating to good causes is also likely to have had multiple positive effects around the world too.

The makers of all popular browsers – IE, Edge, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome included – have announced plans to disable Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol versions 1.0 and 1.1 by default.

TLS

Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0 and 1.1 are the early versions of encryption used to secure connections to HTTPS websites. Their job is to provide confidentiality and integrity of data in transit between clients and servers.

This week, and not unexpectedly, all the big browser manufacturers released co-ordinated announcements that TLS 1.0, which will be 20 years old next January, and TLS 1.1 will no longer be supported by their browsers. Newer, updated versions of the security protocol will be favoured instead.

Why?

The reasons given for dropping these versions of the protocol are that:

• They are now rarely used. For example, Microsoft announced that fewer than “one per cent of daily connections in Microsoft Edge are using TLS 1.0 or 1.1.”. Apple, more accurately puts the figure at less than 0.36% of all connections.
• 20 years is a is a long time for a security technology to stand unmodified, and newer successor versions of TLS are more advanced, provide better performance and are more secure, e.g. TLS 1.3.
• The finalization of TLS 1.3 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in August 2018, means that the proportion of legacy TLS connections will drop even further, and TLS 1.2 is also required for HTTP/2, which should bring performance improvements for the web. Also, vulnerabilities in 1.0 and 1.1 versions will no longer be addressed by the IETF.
• Old versions of TLS rely on MD5 and SHA-1, both now broken, and thought to contain other flaws.

When?

Each browser has given slightly different dates for their formal dropping of TLS 1.0 and 1.1. For Microsoft browsers it will be later this year. For Apple support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will end in March 2020. For Mozilla, March 2020 will also be the removal date, and for Google browser users on early release channels, the date will be January 2020.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It is understandable that, with these versions being very old and unmodified, and not used by many connections, and with newer, more secure and better performance versions available, now is a good time to end default support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1. We are told that the newer successor versions offer greater security and performance and less vulnerability to certain types of attack e.g. BEAST, LogJam and FREAK (Factoring RSA Export Keys). These benefits are, of course, likely to be attractive to most businesses.

News of the co-ordinated killing-off of these 2 versions of the protocol may not be such great news of course, to those who have websites that still only using TLS 1.0 or 1.1, because browsers will soon flag up those websites as insecure or state that they are unable to connect.