Billion Dollar Deals and How They Changed Your World

Jacques Peretti looks at digital payment systems this week. Sounds dull? Not a bit of it: the nuts and bolts of the drive to rid the world of cash are fascinating, in a mildly disturbing way.

Peretti relates how when RBS were trialling the technology that would become contactless payments, they noticed that using it meant people didn’t just spend quickly, they spent [italics] more.[italics] (A scientist has located the unconscious “pain of payment” reflex in the brain that contactless can bypass.) Also: how a Vodafone subsidiary took over the money supply of Kenya.