Re: Input needed: US Federal Reserve Payments Position Paper

I've implemented all of Steve's suggestions -- which are excellent. His
recommendation to drop the whole section "An Introduction to Web Payments"
has been accommodated by addition a slimmed down version of that text to
the end of the first section.

Joseph Potvin


On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 11:38 PM, Steven Rowat <steven_rowat@sunshine.net>wrote:

> On 12/9/13 6:42 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:
>  > Very helpful, thank you. I'd love for you to have a second look and
>
>> give further feedback if possible.
>>
>
>
> OK, done, got to the end this time! Some great stuff in there, I hope the
> right people read it at the Fed. :-)
>
> Here are my personal opinions on what I'd change if I had to hand this in
> tomorrow.
>
> Comments on the Monday Dec 9 EVENING (revised) version:
>
> Executive Overview:
> Good
>
> Improving the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network:
>     1st paragraph has three errors or clumsy points that make it
> incomprehensible on an attempted read:
>     1. Missing word: “US financial system should constrained” should be
> “US financial system should [be] constrained”
>     2. Second sentence very clumsy. I suggest replacing with:
> “Current-generation financial networks provide fundamentally better
> technological solutions to ACH[; these can’t be caught up to by 10 years of
> incremental evolution of the ACH,] the gap is simply too wide.”
>     3. Third sentence, the words “has a number of features…(such as…” I
> believe are misleading, making the sense ambiguous: it implies that
> ‘anti-money laundering’ and ‘native Know-Your-Customer’ are features of
> Bitcoin, which is nonsensical. I suggest changing to:
>     “For example, while the Bitcoin network [lacks] a number of features
> that [make it incompatible] with a global payments system (such as
> anti-money laundering protections and native Know-Your-Customer
> implementations).…”
>
> Simplifying the Governmental Regulatory Environment:
>     All comprehensible, however I think there’s one large sequence flaw:
> The first two paragraphs seem to me to be an *example* of the larger set of
> simplifications and offers that are explained by the subsequent three
> paragraphs. This disoriented me.
>
> In other words, the level of abstraction from the previous section --
> Bitcoin etc. vs. ACH, in a 10-year time-window of comparison -- would seem
> better matched if you started this section with the third paragraph, as:
>     “The adoption of the technologies being created by the Web Payments
> group could ease the regulatory burden placed on both the regulated and the
> regulators….” etc.
> and continued to the end of the ISO/IEC JTC list,
>     THEN
> put in the first two paragraphs, starting with something like “[As an
> example of the type of change we believe we can advise the Fed on, take the
> fact that] the per-state regulatory framework on Money Transmitter
> Licensing in the United States is particularly hostile…” and continue to
> the end of the second paragraph.
>     THEN
> finish as it now stands, with the final short paragraph “The Web Payments
> group at the W3C…”
>
> A Layered Approach to Payment System Improvements:
> Good
>
> An Introduction to Web Payments:
>     Not sure this section is needed at all, and it may be
> counterproductive to include it. Some parts definitely overkill in a
> marketing sense, as if it was written for someone else and copy-pasted (was
> it?) :-)
>
> Web Payment Requirements:
>     Good, except the first word of final paragraph; for reasons already
> given (marketing) I’d cut “Fortunately” and start with “The Web Payments
> group…”
>
> A Flexible Identity Solution:
>     Title seems like a business-buzzphrase because of ‘solution’ being
> overused in the last decade, especially in IT.   I’d prefer if it was
> titled just “Flexible Identity” or something.
> -- the third bullet point I believe has clumsy split phrases that puzzled
> me; I’d suggest:
>     “It must support the attachment of verifiable machine-readable
> information[ to the identity by 3rd parties, such as a government-issued
> electronic passport.]”
> -- final sentence of 2nd paragraph: you have a compound (plural) subject
> and singular verb, doesn’t agree. Should be:
>     “This identity mechanism and the functionality it enables [are] at the
> heart of the Web Payments work.”
>
> Decentralized Products and Services:
> Good.
>     Although *finishing* with “more effortlessly file their taxes” --
> especially since you’ve already referred to ‘more accurately levy taxes’ in
> the just-previous sentence -- seems like it might be taken as ass-kissing.
> ;-)
>
> Purchase Requests, Contracts, and Receipts:
>     Good, *except*, your repetition (cut and paste) of the whole first
> part of the final paragraph from the same paragraph in the previous two
> sections seems like overkill -- although maybe they asked you the question
> in these words, or something, and told you to repeat it?  ☺ -- But to me,
> the final paragraph would be much stronger as a whole, and would finish the
> section nicely, if it said:
>     “This [system] should be of particular interest to the US Federal
> reserve because all of these digital purchase and receipt technologies…”
> etc.
>
> The Web as the Global Financial Network:
> Good.
>
>
> ------
>
> Steven Rowat
>
>
>
>


-- 
Joseph Potvin
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The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
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