Canada Slow to Implement Wireless Payment Processes

So what else is new? Typical of Canadian business to be slow, at least in part to squeeze the maximum return out of their now-outmoded systems and processes.

I bet the biggest delay in implementing this business process technology is the arm-wrestling between the banks, Interac, VISA, wireless providers, to see who'll own the solution - because who owns the solution will own the revenue stream to gouge out of consumers and retailers.

I loved that part in the Globe & Mail article about leaving home and only needing your car keys & cell phone, implying no wallet necessary - will they be doing away with drivers' licenses, loyalty cards, other credit cards etc?

Gotta love those marketers...why not put an identity chip under the skin on the back of your hand - let it communicate with everything - then you really won't need a wallet...

China Goes Shopping with Fists Full of US$

China is buying hard assets everywhere - what will be very interesting to see if when China comes shopping in the US - buying real estate, farmland, industrial capacity, technology, big corporations - whether the US will allow those purchases or deny them based on 'strategic' reasons like the denied Continental Oil bid of several years ago. I wouldn't want to be the US official that has to say to China "your US dollars are no good in the USA"...

If China buys Canadian assets with US dollars, we'd better turn those dollars around real fast - get them back out the door again before they drop in value.

LOL - holding US dollars will eventually become like a game of hot potato - who'll get burned holding them? LOL