On 10/10/2014 15:53, Roland Perry wrote:

[...]
Scenario 1: I don't have a bank account, because no-one will give me
one on account of my past misdemeanours. How do I travel around
London?

A pre-paid debit card. I expect these will become more common. I
didn't say abolish it now, I said a 5-10 year horizon. Maybe by then
mobile phone tickets will have made an inroad?

The prepaid contactless card I have doesn't work on TfL - I imagine
because one could use it to run up a debt on it, given the lack of
online authorisation (this is even though in this case - Orange Cash -
they do verify who you are). FWIW, I got it out of curiosity, and for
other contactless transactions it appears that an online authorisation
is indeed done each time (hence it's not quite the 'wave and go'
experience the adverts make out!).

Perhaps this might all change, or a limited amount of fraud might be
accepted given that, for instance, bus ticket machines are much more
'online' now than they used to be (so misused cards could be blacklisted
sharpish).

Thinking about it, this is quite possibly what an Oyster Mark II
system would be, if it's account based rather than card based (i.e.
the value is not stored on the card but only on the central database).

If that's an account with real money in it, won't that mean TfL have to
register with the authorities as a bank (which they didn't want to do
with Oyster). Stored value cards like Oyster seem to be a loophole.

No (AIUI), as Oyster doesn't fall within the regulations as the only
thing you can use it for is paying for travel - it's not about the
technicalities of where the monetary value is stored, it's what it can
be spent on (a bus journey is travel, a packet of polos isn't).