If you haven’t taken a look at the tasteful supportive lingerie lately, you are truly missing out.  Intimate support is a secret treasure that women have cherished for hundreds of years, and today is no different.

If you haven’t taken a look at the tasteful supportive lingerie lately, you are truly missing out. Intimate support is a secret treasure that women have cherished for hundreds of years, and today is no different.

The evolution of lingerie is here. More and more top designers are now using the best materials available to make their intimates.

The Hour Glass

Years ago, supportive undergarments were designed to make the body look like the famous hour glass shape. Corsets and bustier took a team of assistants to help put it on. To keep the shape, actual bones were inserted into the garment. Strings were used to tighten and tie, allowing the shape to maintain its figure for hours upon hours.

The fashion was designed by a French Queen, who wanted all the women in the court to have a shapely figure. What the Queen wants, the Queen gets. The style didn’t change for quite some time, and it is still important to have the curvy hour glass figure.

Overnight Sensation

Things changed. With the introduction of new fabrics like nylon, polyester, and spandex, the supportive lingerie world changed almost overnight. The synthetic materials had the elastic support that made strings and bones obsolete.

The benefits of the new fabrics were embraced by women around the world. Not only could the garment be worn without help, they were much more inexpensive that the styles of years past.

Today’s Undergarments

Exciting new fabrics continue to be developed and perfected. What becomes of them are the very best intimates the world has ever seen. They are lightweight, comfortable, and supportive.

Bras, bustier, and corsets are staples of women all over the world. They appreciate the support, but the undergarments are also created with a fashion conscious appeal. They are sexy, revealing, and sensual. Getting the most out of today’s hottest lingerie lays in the eyes of the beholder.

Even the most inexpensive intimates are soft to the touch and pleasing to the eye. They provide results in support and in the bedroom.

Shopping for intimates has also changed. Through the marketing power of the internet, women are able to find all the top designers’ wonderful intimates. They are purchased online and more women are enjoying the benefits. There are no trips to the store, and no worries. Just sexy intimate apparel for day or evening wear.

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Imagine the following situations:

There are different players in the “Payments Cycle”, from the end users to the banks and even the clearing systems that they use. Each one has widely differing requirements as regards their information needs.

The older folk among us may remember a song that was popular in the mid-1960s, by Bobby Sherman titled “Happiness Is”. To quote a key line from the lyrics “happiness is different things to different people”. And this is my starting point. It is the “different things to different people” part that is so important, especially when one considers the critical issues that surround the payments industry. 

Banks have long claimed the right to be the sole interlocutor in the payments world – a right that they claim on the strength that they alone legally hold the accounts of individuals from which and to which these payments are made. Traditionally because of this banks have been the sole and arbitrary determinant of what information constitutes a payment. Usually this is the bare minimum to satisfy the banks own operational requirements – originating and receiving banks, sender and receiver account numbers, the currency and amount and the briefest of reference information. 

Payment information works for banks, but does it really work for any other participants in the payments chain? The answer is an emphatic NO! Different players in the payments chain need and would like to receive other payments related information. The ability to achieve real STP (Straight Through Processing) can lead to greater efficiencies in terms of operating procedures, processing times, fewer errors etc., etc. In short greater efficiency leads to reduced costs – and reduced costs spell increased profits. And this applies to customer and banks alike. 

Broadly speaking there are four users of payments related information and they all would like to see different types of information that will assist in their own quest for efficiency. 

• Customers - To customers a payment is a small (but very important) part of the business chain. Customers are seeking detailed information that relates to its relationship with its own customers and with its suppliers. Single payments may involve hundreds or even thousands of different transactions such as invoices, credit and debit notes, returns, adjustments and so on. Accurate details of each of these are vital to the record keeping and the business operations.
• Banks - Banks are account keepers – and because they hold accounts or their clients’ payments and payment systems are the natural vehicles for moving funds from one account to another. Who pays, who receives, when and where, what currency and how settlement will be effected – and of course the customer details too.
• Clearinghouses - Clearinghouses are the distributors of payments on a mass scale. Recent years have seen the rapid development and deployment of many different payment mechanisms. Often these allow for direct input by the customer against his bank’s authority – and the customer still has to find another way to pass on all that vital information that he so desperately needs.
• Banking authorities - Events in recent years have forced the regulators to take a much closer look at what payments flow where in the banking world. Either the regulator himself wants the information directly or he has made it obligatory on the banks to record, monitor and retain certain details that relate to payments such as AML (anti-Money Laundering) requirements. 

The following brief description summarizes the parties from the payer to the beneficiary including all the intermediaries who have an interest (and of course need information) on a typical payment being made through an RTGS system. Against each party I have briefly indicated what information they need to know.  

• Sending Bank – (1) Which bank is it going to, (2) the amount, and name of the paying customer, (3) name and account details of the receiving customer. At the end of the process they may want to also receive a confirmation that the payment was made.
• RTGS system – (1) Which bank is sending, (2) which bank is receiving, (3) the amount, (4) the transaction type.
• Receiving Bank – (1) Which bank sent the payment, (2) the amount, (3) name and account details of the receiving customer, (4) transaction type, (5) settlement confirmation from the RTGS system.
• Payee – (1) The amount, (2) the name of the payee, (3) payer’s reference data, (4) beneficiary references such as invoice numbers, payment amendments such as credit notes etc.
• Payer – (1) Confirmation that the payment was made and (2) the date on which this occurred.

And this is just the basics! It should be clear that payments mean different things to different people.

Ah well … those 60s …..

“To a preacher it’s a prayer, prayer, prayer,
To the Beatles it’s a yeah, yeah, yeah,
To a banker lots and lots of dough,
To a racer a GTO.

Happiness is, happiness is, happiness is,
different things to different people,
That’s what happiness is.”

(“Happiness Is” Bobby Sherman, 1965)

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