North American banks are having difficulties keeping up with the evolutionary pace in payments.
Technological innovation is transforming commercial payments across North America, greatly affecting major financial institutions in the US and Canada. Celent, a fintech research and advisory firm and part of data analytics consultancy GlobalData, shared a report on this topic at Sibos on Tuesday, with some unexpected conclusions.
The survey, conducted over the summer with a majority of the top 20 banks in the US and Canada, revealed that no single bank excels in all areas of payments. Moreover, the definition of “best” varies depending on the client and the context. What emerged as more important than trying to do “everything” in payments was focusing on what matters most to clients.
The pace and breadth of change in the payments space is so intense that some banks described themselves as “drowning in change.” However, this environment also presents significant opportunities. As the authors of the report emphasize, what matters most is not a bank’s size, but its attitude. Smaller banks, in particular, often outperform their larger counterparts simply because they are more willing to embrace change.
Each bank surveyed reported taking a unique approach to payments, with differentiation becoming a key competitive factor. Many respondents noted that only the largest banks had the resources—both human and financial—to innovate at scale. Yet, even deep pockets don’t guarantee success.
Celent’s analysts argue that Banks must differentiate their payment offerings or risk falling irreversibly behind. The desire for change outweighs available budgets—innovation stems more from mindset than money. A unified, client-centered goal must drive all decisions in the payments domain.
In practice, this has led some institutions to shift from building products first and marketing them later, to starting with client and industry research and then designing solutions to meet those needs. This represents a significant shift in product management, placing the client at the center of the innovation process. The goal is not only to become a service provider, but a partner and advisor—delivering what’s best for the client, not just for the bank.
Looking ahead, while significant changes are expected in areas such as CBDCs, stablecoins, ACH systems, and payment infrastructure, the survey identified fraud and risk management as the top priority for 43% of the banks surveyed. This is followed by 29% that are focused on improving operations and transforming processing infrastructure. Additionally, about 50% of banks anticipate a full system replacement in areas such as payment hubs, cross-border payments, payment operations, and financial crime prevention.
In the late 1950s, Norwegian toymaker Asmund Laerdal received an unusual brief: to design a life-like mannequin that resembled an unconscious patient.
Peter Safar, an Austrian doctor, had just developed the basics of CPR, a lifesaving technique that keeps blood and oxygen flowing to the brain and vital organs after the heart has stopped beating.
He was eager to teach it to the public, but had a problem – the deep chest compressions often resulted in fractured ribs, which meant practical demonstrations were impossible.
It was in his search for a solution that he was introduced to Laerdal, an intrepid innovator then in his forties who possessed extensive knowledge of soft plastics, honed through years of work with children’s toys and model cars. He had even begun to collaborate with the Norwegian Civil Defence to develop imitation wounds for training purposes.
Laerdal, who had rescued his son from drowning by applying pressure to his ribcage and pushing water out of his lungs just a few years earlier, was eager to help, and the two decided to create a training model.
The Norwegian toymaker had a vision: It needed to look unthreatening, and assuming that men would not want to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a male dummy, it should be a woman.
So he went looking for a face.
Resusci Anne or CPR Annie, the lifesaving training dummy [Creative Commons]
The unknown woman of the Seine
It was on the wall of his parents-in-law’s home in the picturesque Norwegian city of Stavanger that he found it.
It was an oil painting of a young woman, her hair parted and gathered at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were closed peacefully, her lashes matted, and her lips curled in a faint, sorrowful smile.
This was a face which, in the form of a plaster cast, had adorned homes across Europe for decades.
There are many rumours as to how the original mask was created, but one story that has cemented itself as urban legend is that it was of a woman who had supposedly drowned in the Seine River in 19th-century Paris.
In the French capital at the time, it was common for the bodies of the deceased who could not be identified to be placed on black marble slabs and displayed in the window of the city’s morgue situated near Notre Dame Cathedral.
The purpose of this practice was to see if any members of the public would recognise the deceased and be able to provide information about them. Yet, in reality, it became a morbid attraction for Parisians.
As the story goes, a pathologist, struck by her beauty and serene expression, commissioned a sculptor to produce a death mask of her face, a plaster or wax mould of a person made shortly after death.
No documents survive in the Paris police archives, and it is impossible to verify the truth of this story.
However, a sculpture of the supposed death mask captured the public’s imagination, and reproductions of it began to circulate in the early 20th century.
Her face soon decorated Parisian salons and wealthy people’s homes.
The visage was known as L’Inconnue de la Seine – the Unknown Woman of the Seine – and it became a muse for writers, poets, and artists.
The French writer Albert Camus called her the “drowned Mona Lisa”, while the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke said of her serene expression, “It was beautiful, because it smiled, because it smiled so deceptively, as if it knew.”
Resusci Anne
It is not known whether Laderdal was aware of the legend behind the painting in Stavanger, but in 1960, he gave it new life when the first CPR doll was officially launched with the subject’s face.
The doll was given a soft plastic torso – a compressible chest for practising CPR – and open lips for mouth-to-mouth rescue.
She travelled around the world, appearing in fire stations, schools, hospitals, scout groups, and airline training centres, where she was used for CPR training.
She was also finally given a name, “Resusci Anne,” by Laerdal, a shortening of the word “resuscitation”. Anne is a common female name in Norway and France, which suggests that by this stage, the toymaker was aware of the legend behind the face. In the English-speaking world, she became known as “CPR Annie”.
“Annie, are you OK?” became the go-to training phrase as people simulated how to check for responsiveness in the event of a cardiac arrest.
In the 1980s, about a century after Annie was reported to have been found in the Seine, Michael Jackson immortalised her in pop culture.
As the story goes, the superstar heard the phrase during a first aid training session and, struck by the rhythm and urgency of it, worked it into the chart-topping song, Smooth Criminal, repeating it like a heartbeat: “Annie, are you OK? So, Annie, are you OK? Are you OK, Annie?”
Volunteers undergo CPR training by St John Ambulance instructors as part of a course for learning how to administer COVID-19 vaccines at Manchester United Football Club on January 30, 2021, in Manchester, England [Christopher Furlong/Getty Images]
‘She would be proud’
Laerdal died in 1981, but the company he founded, Laerdal Medical, continues to be a juggernaut in emergency medical training and the development of cutting-edge healthcare technology.
Annie herself has received technological upgrades, including flashing lights, lung feedback, and sensors that indicated if compressions were off-rhythm.
But her face stayed the same.
Pal Oftedal, director of Corporate Communications at Laerdal Medical, says that regardless of whether the story behind Annie is true, she has had a positive impact on engaging people worldwide in the lifesaving practice of CPR.
He said that one in 20 people would witness a cardiac arrest in their lifetime, with 70 percent occurring outside the home.
The American Heart Association says that immediate CPR can double or even triple a person’s chance of survival after a cardiac arrest.
Annie has been joined by a new selection of mannequins featuring a range of ethnicities, ages, body types, and facial features as Laderdal seeks to diversify its product offerings.
Laerdal Medical estimates that Annie and her fellow resuscitation mannequins have been used to train more than 500 million people worldwide.
Oftedal says that he believes whoever Annie was, he is sure “she would be proud of the important contribution she has made to the world”.
This article is part of ‘Ordinary items, extraordinary stories’, a series about the surprising stories behind well-known items.
New details about the circumstances of “Cosby Show” star Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s death have emerged.
The Red Cross in Costa Rica confirmed to The Times on Wednesday that its first responders also tended to another man in the same drowning incident that claimed Warner’s life on Sunday. The patient, whose identity was not disclosed, survived the drowning.
Costa Rican Red Cross said in a statement that it received an emergency report on Sunday at 2:10 p.m. of a “water-related incident” at Playa Grande, Cahuita, Limón, involving two men who required emergency treatment. Three ambulances arrived at the beach where Red Cross personnel attended to the two men. They performed CPR and revived the unidentified swimmer. He was transported to a nearby clinic in “critical condition,” the statement said.
First responders also performed CPR on Warner, but to no avail. “He was unfortunately declared deceased at the scene,” the statement said. The Costa Rican Red Cross also told People that “two people were dragged by a water current at the beach,” and they were out of the water when paramedics arrived.
The Red Cross statement confirms details previously shared by Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Department, which told the Associated Press on Monday that first responders found Warner without vital signs and he was taken to the morgue. Warner was on vacation with his family. He was 54.
Warner, an Emmy-nominated actor, was best known for starring as Theo Huxtable for eight seasons on “The Cosby Show.” His numerous TV credits also include “The Resident,” “Malcolm & Eddie,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “9-1-1” and “Suits.” He was a director for shows “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Kenan & Kel,” among others, and a Grammy-winning musician.
As news of his death spread Monday, Warner’s Hollywood peers, including Morris Chestnut, Tracee Ellis Ross, Viola Davis and Niecy Nash paid tribute on social media. Beyoncé also honored the actor, updating her website to include a tribute to the TV star.
“Rest in power, Malcolm-Jamal Warner,” reads the tribute, which features a black-and-white photo of the actor in his youth. “Thanks for being a big part of our shared television history. You will be missed.”
