Because the tasks you listed are a no-brainer. No innovation required. The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler
Because only the first two are completed by banks (many of them competing in this area). Payment terminals are manufactured and (often) distributed independently. Clearing & settlement is run by a number of competing networks (Amex, Visa & Master Card, ...) which are inter-operable. Card & chip manufacture is also standardised but run my competing companies.
Then, of course we have the world of e-payments, which is a whole new universe.
As you can see, a lot of innovation, a lot of competition. No justification whatsoever for the state to monopolise this market.
> The account management? > The cash distributors? > The payment terminals? > The clearing & settlement? > The card & chip manufacture?
Bullets one, two and four.
Manufacturing the terminals doesn't have to be done by the banks, but they should have in-house service staff who can take one of them apart and put it back together again, just to make sure that they don't get Diebolded. And the cards are just ordinary consumer electronics with hard-coded encryption.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
What are you saying, that the bread we buy should be free of charge coz it's a no brainer to make?
How wrong you are. Latest innovation is two way IP exchanges of information between the ATMs and the banks central IT - allowing it to "push" contextual information to clients based on who the client is. Other innovations include new security mechanisms, cash depositing functions... etc.
Most central banks are quite good at security functions. And last time I checked, the ability to exchange encrypted data was not a new invention. Automated money counting deposit slots are not new inventions either. The only new thing about them is that they've gotten an access point on the outside of the building.
The logistics of bread production and banking are radically different.
No, and I'd appreciate it if you stopped putting words in my mouth to build straw men and asking rhetorical questions. You've been doing it all thread long. It's tiresome. The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler
There were two issues being discussed: > the gratuity of a service provided by a bank > the suitability of the state taking on a specific job
To my question: Why on earth do you thing the state is better suited for this type of a job? You answered: Because the tasks you listed are a no-brainer. No innovation required.
So... I was quick and wrong in implying that you were responding to the issue (gratuity) - when in fact it was the second (suitability of the state).
I do not think that your criteria (whether or not a task or a process is a no brainer) is applicable to making a decision as to whether the state or the private sector is best suited to complete a specific task. Really. There are other factors at play which are much more important.
