He asks the chief executive of the Association for Payment Clearing Services (Apacs), which represents the credit card industry, what the banks are thinking of lending money to people who will never be able to afford to pay it back.

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Gemma Smith of the Association of Payment and Clearing Services (Apacs) told the programme that the clearing service technology is not date sensitive.

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It checks a user's identity, looks up his rights, contacts a financial clearing-house to arrange payment and, if everything is in order, decrypts the digital work.

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Visa earns revenues by charging fees for its transaction processing service, which involves routing payment information to facilitate the authorization, clearing and settlement of transactions.

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As now, anyone paid by cheque will deposit it in their bank, to be sent on to various clearing houses, which route the cheque back to the issuer's bank for payment approval and the transfer of funds.

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Just imagine if this extraordinary flood of software development talent could be deployed in the decentralized digital currency space where it would lead to reduced transactional friction, shorter clearing times, massively lower processing fees, optional buyer anonymity, and finality of merchant payment.

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