David G.W. Birch is a director of Consult Hyperion, an IT management consultancy that specializes in electronic transactions. Described by The Telegraph as ’one of the world’s leading experts on digital money’, by The Independent as a ’grade-A geek’, by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation as ’one of the most user-friendly of the UK’s uber-techies’ and by Financial World as ’mad’, Dave is a member of the editorial board of the E-Finance & Payments Law and Policy Journal, a columnist for SPEED and well known for his blogs on digital money and digital identity. He is a media commentator on electronic business issues (having appeared on BBC television and radio, Sky and other channels around the world) and has been named by WIRED magazine as one of their global top 15 favourite sources of business and finance information.