During lockdown in the pandemic, I went a bit off script and started singing karaoke songs, with the words changed to focus on banking and payments. It was just a bit of fun to keep me busy at that time.
Nevertheless, there are still many moments where I hear a song and think oh, that would be good for banking and payments. It’s just my warped head so, when I heard George Michael’s Careless Whisper the other day, I thought that would be a great song about payments: A Cashless Whisper.
You see, as we move away from cash transactions face-to-face in a physical world and make our payments in real-time remotely in a digital world, there seems to be far more insecurity. Faster real-time payments that cannot be revoked or retrieved are rife, as are scams, fraud and criminal activities. It is getting worse.
So, here it is: a Cashless Whisper:
I feel so insecure
As I pay your bill
And enter my details
As the payments made
Something on the screen
Calls to mind an issue
And all of my sad losses made before
I'm never gonna pay again
Ripped off world has got no trust now
Though it's easy to pretend
I know that banks aren’t fools
They should've known better than to cheat me though
And waste the money I'd been given
So I'm never gonna pay again
The way I used to pay with you
Time can never rank
The cashless whispers of a good bank
To the mouse and swipe
Ignorance is kind
There's no comfort in the truth
Pain is all you'll find
I'm never gonna pay again
Ripped off world has got no trust now
Though it's easy to pretend
I know that banks aren’t fools
They should've known better than to cheat me though
And waste the money I'd been given
So I'm never gonna pay again
The way I used to pay with you
Never without your cash
Tonight the scams seem so loud
I wish that we could lose this crowd
Maybe it's worse this way
We'd take our money away
But we could have been so good together
We could have transacted almost forever
But now who's gonna pay with me?
Please pay
And I'm never gonna pay again
Ripped off world has got no trust now
Though it's easy to pretend
I know that banks aren’t fools
They should've known better than to cheat me though
And waste the money I'd been given
So I'm never gonna pay again
The way I used to pay with you
Now that monies gone
Now that monies gone
Now that monies gone
What you did is so wrong, so wrong
And you leave me broken
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...