Banks are profiling you and not just for credit

Original article from CNN Money “New cash transfer service rivals PayPal”

The vision of clearXchange is that you use your friends ID in some way to transfer money and hence take on PayPal as the dominant force in P2P payments.

At the end of the article is a piece Your bank is profiling you! but it does not quite make the point that this allows access into transaction your were party to, but did not complete in the traditional way and who your friends are. More data about you.

The question becomes that do we [the public] understand that for convenience of these services we are entering into the barter of data for service and that this data has more value that the ability to settle a debt with a friend.  Whilst I am sure that this settlement route prevents fraud and money laundering – it also tells “someone” about how you use cash, which by its very nature does not have that level of traceability.