Thursday, June 28, 2018

Line to launch cryptocurrency exchange in Singapore

FT, here

The first "known" financial technology

Morgan Museum, NYC


(Small) Variations on a Theme: This blog's author Lund Presentation on "FinTech, TechFin, Competitive Markets: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?", here

Friday, June 22, 2018

FinTech,TechFin, Competitive Markets: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

S. Vezzoso (this blog’s author), presentation here. Please email me if you have any comment.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Opinion of the European Banking Authority on the implementation of the RTS on SCA and CSC

EBA, here.
"In the event that the ASPSP does not have a system that enables it to adequately respond to the confirmation request sent by the provider initiating the payment, then the ASPSP should give PISPs the possibility of accessing the necessary data themselves, so as to allow them to make their own judgements on the sufficient availability of funds."

"Given that PSD2 does not limit the types of payment transactions a PISP is allowed to offer, and given the provisions in Articles 4(15) and 66(1) of PSD2 in particular, the EBA would like to clarify that a PISP has the right to initiate the same transactions that the ASPSP offers to its own PSUs, such as instant payments, batch payments, international payments, recurring transactions, payments set by national schemes and future-dated payments."

“ TECHNOPOLY” and what to do about it: Reform, Redress and Regulation

ResPublica, here

The regulatory mistakes that let Facebook and Google buy ad dominance

Axios, here

Super Platforms, Big Data, and the Competition Law: The Japanese Approach in Contrast with the US and the EU

T. Takigawa, here

Lessons from the Recent Commission’s Decision on Google. To Favour Oneself or Not, That is the Question

B. Mäihäniemi, here

Virtual Competition

N. Colombo, here

The Sound and Fury of Patent Activity

R. Feldman, M. Lemley, here

Amazon—An Infrastructure Service and Its Challenge to Current Antitrust Law

L. Khan, here (pp. 99 ff.), here

Digital Dominance

Edited by Martin Moore and Damian Tambini, here

‘Direct’ and ‘indirect’ effects of enforcement

DotEcon for CMA, here

No Fair Hearing for the DoJ in the AT&T-Time Warner Decision

C. Sagers, here

Data Nationalization in the Shadow of Social Credit Systems

F. Pasquale, here

Report on Competition Policy 2017

EC, here

Projet conjoint sur les algorithmes et leurs enjeux pour l'application du droit de la concurrence

Autorité de la concurrence, Bundeskartellamt, ici

Supreme Court to review Apple app store commissions case

FT, here

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Salesforce deepens data sharing partnership with Google

TechCrunch, here

Diana Moss and Joshua Wright discuss AT&T-Time Warner Merger

C-SPAN, Video here

THE COURT’S DECISION TO LET AT&T AND TIME WARNER MERGE IS RIDICULOUSLY BAD

TheVerge, here

Economics and Antitrust

ABA Antitrust, Spring 2018, here

A community-driven project has proposed a model privacy bill for India that puts citizens first

Scroll.in, here

The Blockchain: A Data Structure With a Weird Cult Attached

D. Gerard, here

D’Enron aux fintech en passant par les subprimes : peut-on sanctionner ex post les abus de marché ?

F. Marty, ici

French media plan to meet with government over Google-GDPR concerns

Digiday, here

Fintech's Adyen Shows the Long Path to Unseat Giants of Finance

Bloomberg, here

Shutting down ePrivacy: lobby bandwagon targets Council

Corporate Europe, here

How Judge Leon blew it with U.S. v AT&T

The Washington Post, here

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Preview of the upcoming discussions at ASCOLA 2018 NYC

Here.

And forget the distinction between the main track and the parallel sessions: great topics everywhere!

(mine included, of course 😊. I hope I’ll do it justice.  First draft of my paper coming soon. Abstract:
‘The use of technology to support the production and delivery of financial services has a long history, spanning from the written records of financial transactions in Mesopotamia, to much more recent developments, such as the first use in 1995 of the World Wide Web to provide online account checking, and the introduction of high‐frequency trading. In the last ten years, however, the adoption of digital technology in the financial sector, generally known as FinTech, has undergone a dramatic acceleration, both in the West and the East. In the latter, arguably, the magnitude of the transformative powers at work is most visible. Ant Financial Services Group, a spin‐out of e‐commerce platform Alibaba, lately achieved a market value of around €127 billion ($150 billion) based on the success of its digital payments system Alipay and money market fund Yu'e Bao. Tencent's popular instant‐messaging app WeChat incorporates an online payment service, WeChat Pay, which is used by a substantial proportion of its one billion monthly users. A strong trend towards mobile payments is also experienced in other countries, such as India. Ongoing transformations in the financial sector are significant and global, which creates opportunities and challenges for consumers, traditional and non‐traditional financial service providers, and regulators alike. Incumbent banks have expressed concerns about the disruptive potential and the dangers of Big Tech, which the Paper calls TechFin adopting the definition of Alibaba's CEO, Jack Ma. While banks brace themselves for potentially unsettling market developments, financial regulators discuss the impact of new technologies on processes and business models, as well as the need for a changed supervisory methodology. The challenge for most financial regulators is to ensure that the multiple benefits offered by these new technologies are realized without hampering consumer protection and compromising the stability of the financial system. The Paper embraces a different perspective and explores some of the likely consequences of FinTech in terms of market structure and competition. Keeping the literature strands on platforms in the background, we analyse the current push towards the “platformization” of banking services. If the financial sector moves towards production and distribution models where the banks see their pivotal role diminished, this is certainly of concern to financial regulators, who should at the very least adapt their supervisory methodologies to the new situation. From a competition policy perspective, however, it is important to identify the types of market structure that could better satisfy consumers' banking and financial needs. The Paper makes the point that the analysis of the possible impact of the FinTech revolution on competition dynamics in the financial sector is particularly relevant especially to make sure that the benefits of innovation are harnessed for the good of consumers. This perspective is solidly ingrained in the “long term” view of competition policy.’)

Friday, June 15, 2018

Venmo is discontinuing web support for payments and more

TechCrunch, here.

If You’re A Facebook User, You’re Also a Research Subject

Bloomberg, here.

Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones

Le Vatican (pas de blague!), ici

Bitcoin’s astronomical rise last year was buoyed by market manipulation, researchers say

Washington Post, here

Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered?

J. Griffin, A. Shams, here

The History of Innovation in Antitrust Law,

Disco, here

Pharmacies Accuse Drug Maker of Anticompetitive Contracting to Restrict Biosimilar Market

Akerman, here

Policy Recommendations on Augmented Intelligence

AMA, here

AAI AGAIN URGES FEDERAL CIRCUIT TO PREVENT COPYRIGHT OVERREACH IN SOFTWARE MARKETS (ORACLE V. GOOGLE)

Amicus Brief, here

The Government's Loss In AT&T-Time Warner Was A Waste Of Taxpayer Resources

H. Singer, here

Two Companies Won, American Democracy Lost

G. Sohn, here

Why Facebook and Google should pay you for your data

The Boston Globe, here

Digitalisation of money and the future of monetary policy

P. Bofinger, here

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Snapchat is finally opening its app to developers — and has clearly learned from Facebook’s mistakes

Recode, here

Microsoft reportedly working on rival Amazon Go tech for cashier-free stores

The Verge, here

La donnée, une marchandise comme les autres ?

H. Isaac, ici

Comment définir et réguler les « données d’intérêt général » ?

B. PAILHÈS, ici

Le Big Data en agriculture

V. BELLON-MAUREL ITAP, P. NEVEU MISTEA, A. TERMIER  et F. GARCIA, ici and here

Données et règles de concurrence

A. Perrot, ici

Modèles économiques des données : une relation complexe entre demande et offre

P. Belleflamme, ici

Misinformation & missing information: a fix for fake news

Bruegel, here

Adyen share price doubles on market debut

FinExtra, here

Small wonder it had to go to trial!

FT, here

Antitrust law never envisioned massive tech companies like Google

R. Levine, here

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism & Democracy for a Just Society

G. Weyl, Talk at Google moderated by its Chief Economist, here

AT&T Shellacs the Government in Time Warner Merger Case

R. Picker, here

Bitcoin Technology Opens Up Kenya's $20 Billion Informal Economy

Bloomberg, here

Amazon’s Clever Machines Are Moving From the Warehouse to Headquarters

Bloomberg, here

Data Ethics Framework

UK Government, here

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Ofgem issues statement of objections under the Competition Act to Economy Energy, E, and Dyball Associates

Ofgem, here

German Federal Court of Justice hands down landmark judgment in Cement Cartel Case

CDC, here

La Liga quiere usar móviles de particulares como espías a través de su aplicación

El Pais, aquì

Unlockd falls in face of Google threat and enters administration

Financial Review, here

Yahoo! fined £250,000 after systemic failures put customer data at risk

ICO, here

Le Conseil de la concurrence (LU) exempte l’accord mis en place par Webtaxi S.à.r.l. sur le marché de la réservation préalable de taxis

Décision n. 2018-FO-01, ici

Bedeutung digitaler Infrastrukturen in Deutschland. Chancen und Herausforderungen für Rechenzentren im internationalen Wettbewerb

R. Hintemann, J. Clausen, hier

Competition Commission of India may suggest structural changes in Walmart-Flipkart deal

Economic Times, here

Saturday, June 09, 2018

IBM's world-class Summit supercomputer gooses speed with AI abilities

 Cnet, here.

Merkel auf digitalem Glatteis

FAZ, hier

Microsoft will ‘lose developers for a generation’ if it stuffs up GitHub, says future CEO

The Register, here

Survey: Consumer trust may be Amazon’s true competitive advantage

Search Engine Land, here

Australia’s cozy banking market feels some heat

FT, here

Reference re digital exhaustion

Case C-263/18, here

‘Big Tech’ Isn’t One Big Monopoly

Project Disco, here

The Value of Everything review: How to end the we make, they take economy

The Irish Times, here

How Ant Financial grew larger than Goldman Sachs

Cnbc, here

Chart of the Week: The Rise of Corporate Giants

IMF Blog, here

Technology, Political Economy, and the Role(s) of Law

J. Cohen, here

Thursday, June 07, 2018

Google Pay startet Ende Juni in Deutschland – mit der Commerzbank

Handelsblatt, hier

Several measures announced aimed at streamlining and simplifying mergers' procedures for companies

Autorité de la concurrence, here

The Internet: To Regulate or Not to Regulate?

CMA, here.

Inquiry here

The effect of market consolidation on innovation in the HDD industry

A.R. Bennato, S. Davies, F. Mariuzzo, P. Osmosi, here

Taxi, ride-sourcing and ride-sharing services - Summaries of Contributions

OECD, here

The Facebook comma


Transparency and the Marketplace for Student Data

C. Russell, J. Reidenberg, E. Martin, T. Norton, here

Airbnb removes 80% of Japan home-share listings

Asian Review, here

Wednesday, June 06, 2018

EU Competition Law Goals and the Digital Economy

A. Ezrachi, here.

Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends

NYTimes, here. See also 

It’s all happening in Australian competition law

Australian Competition Law, here.

Paul Francis: “We can achieve very good anonymity and still provide useful analytics”

LINC, here.

Automated individual decision-making and profiling?

ICO, here.

Google’s mobile web dominance raises competition eyebrows

Politico, here.

The Cost of Developers

Stratechery, here.

Control, Alt or Delete?

Which,.here..

Citi opens API sandbox

Finextra, h.

The Guardian view on Amazon: not a normal monopoly

The Guardian, here.

Deutsche Verbände zur ePrivacy-Verordnung

DATENHANDEL UND PLATTFORMEN

R. Dewenter, H.Lüth, hier.

Killer Acquisitions

C. Cunningham, F. Ederer, S. Ma, here.

Unlockd will 'cease to exist' if Google blocks the app

Financial Review, here

Monday, June 04, 2018

A Letter to the FTC re Google

K. Ellison, here

Entry, Innovation and Productivity Growth in the U.S. Economy: Facts and Open Questions (i.e., Puzzles)

J. Haltiwanger, Presentation here

GitHub users are already fuming about the company’s sale to Microsoft for $7.5bn

Quartz, here.
Heise.de, hier: "Mal losgelöst von steuerlichen Erwägungen, die aus Microsoft-Sicht für die Akquisition sprechen, mag es für die Redmonder wohl auch darum gehen, die riesige Zahl der registrierten GitHub-Anwender – die Rede ist von 27 Millionen – zu den eigenen Angeboten insbesondere im Azure-Umfeld zu locken. Wie verheißend mag für Microsoft ein direkt aus GitHub nach Azure führender Deploy-Button sein!"

(Follow the data?)

Amazon and PayPal more trusted amongst younger generation than banks to hold their personal data

RFi Group, here

The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda

NBER, Conference Papers here

Taking control of personal data is about your rights, not owning it

J. Tennison, here

A Study of NASA Scientists Shows How to Overcome Barriers to Open Innovation

HBR, here

Could the Steward Health v. BCBS Trial Revitalize Monopolization Law?

C. Sagers, here

So you think Alipay is just for the Chinese?

The Finanser, here

La rivoluzione copernicana del 25 maggio 2018 in materia di privacy

G. Buttarelli, here

U.S. Antitrust Law Could Break OPEC's Collusion On Oil Production Deals

Seeking Alpha, here

Evident Internet Market Failure To Protect Consumer Welfare

S. Cleland, here

Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

Democracy Journal, here

N26 will im Herbst in Amerika starten

FAZ, hier

Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends

NYTimes, here

Erste Bank will Google Pay anbieten

Die Zeit, hier