Vodafone Ireland has had this service in operation for a couple of months now, it's called 'Vodafone IOU'. The deal is it's €2 when your credit runs out, you need at least 0.01c in your a/c to send the text which is a pain in the behind.

Then, when you top up next, they charge you 0.15c for the service they provided.

It's still 0.15 for nothin, but at least it isn't as bad as this Orange deal!

As banks will accept a mobile phone bill as proof you live somewhere, and mobile phone companies require something like a bank statement in order to sign you up on a monthly contract.

It's like they only really trust each other.

And when John Reid's masterplan for fingerprint operated phones comes into effect, there'll be the blueprint for fingerprint banking!

The future's bleak, the future's Orwellian

Banks paying interest on a current account? Since when?

With the notable exception of the old building societies (eg Alliance Leicester) the big banks can hardly call what they pay interest. Barclays, Natwest & HSBC all offer 0.1% on their current accounts - it wouldn't make a great deal of difference if Orange had to start paying that!

(personally I stick with A&L, 6.5% on current account, 10% on regular savings - Barclays should be ashamed of themselves)

Over 10 million cards have been issued of which around 5 million are in regular use. As of March 2007, more than 80% of all tube and bus journeys use Oyster. Around 22% of all tube journeys are Oyster pay-as-you-go, around 4% cash.

Whos getting the intrest on all the funds we all store on Oyster cards ?

Some one is holding a lot of our cash, I wonder where it all is and what its all doing.