Dateline: Dubai, 25th May 2023.Visa have launched their “Visa+” service, initially through partners PayPal and Venmo, with the admirable aim of helping people to send money between different payment apps. The basic idea is to create a directory of unique addresses so that you can send money to (eg) dgwbirch without having to know whether dgwbirch is using this app or that app, this network or that network. Think how much easier life will be when you can just put a pay name on your business card so that anyone can send you money without having to know your routing code and account number or your Venmo handle or your Visa card number.SharePay NamesThis idea of using some kind of unique personal identifier to route payments (a “pay name”) is not new and there are different kinds of pay names out there now. I set up $dgwbirch on Square Cash, for example (although I’ve forgotten the password), and you can pay my invoices through paypal.me/15MbLtd if you want to, and if you want to donate to my favourite charity (the Dave Birch Holiday Home in the South of France Emergency Appeal Fund) then you can give generously to dgwbirch.eth rather than having to copy and paste a long and complicated Etherum address from somewhere.Subscribe nowSome instant payment systems already have identifiers rather than the routing codes and account numbers that we continue to use in the U.K. In Australia, you can send instant payments from your bank to an account…Pay @dgwbirch £10