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Australia The Almighty Buck

Is Australia Becoming A Cashless Society? (abc.net.au) 366

Australia's Reserve Bank will roll out an instantaneous money-transferring technology later this year, "which will push Australia even further towards being a cashless society," according to ABC. An anonymous reader quotes their report: In 2014, 12 financial institutions signed up to build the "New Payment Platform," partly as a way of bringing Australia up to speed with other countries that are ahead in the race to becoming completely cashless. Sweden is on track to become the world's first completely cashless economy, and just last November India got rid of its highest denomination bills, effectively eliminating 90 per cent of its paper money... The "New Payment Platform" will mean money can be transferred almost instantaneously, even when the payer and payee are members of different banks.
"It's estimated that somewhere between about $3.5 and $5 billion in Australia every year is lost in tax revenue due to the sort of cash economy," says an economics professor at the University of New South Wales, who predicts Australia could be cash-free by 2020. The Australian Payments Association reports that over 75% of the country's face-to-face payments are already tap-and-go, and ATM withdrawals have sunk to a 15-year low.
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Is Australia Becoming A Cashless Society?

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    The better to track you with, my dear!

  • We don't have EFTPOS facilities that are anywhere near reliable enough for cashless to be realistic.
    • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      The breakdowns that I've encountered, while rare, are generally moderately severe, i.e. not just out for a few minutes, but hours, or overnight. Fortunately the local IGA supermarket will allow known customers to run a tab for as long as it takes to recover the EFTPOS systems.

      I don't do EFTPOS or credit card, it's cash, cheque, or direct deposit. The banks charge too much on EFTPOS and credit card transactions. Some of the merchants around here are already adding 30 or 50 cents to EFTPOS/CC purchases.

      If you

      • In America, there have been some experiments with alternative currencies. The most famous is the Ithaca Hour [wikipedia.org] which is nominally worth $10, which at the time it was first introduced was considered a fair wage for an hour of work in Ithaca, New York. One of the early justifications for the IH was that they could be donated to panhandlers with the assurance that it wouldn't be used to buy drugs. This turned out to be incorrect, since drug dealers and prostitutes were among the most enthusiastic early adopte

      • The breakdowns that I've encountered, while rare, are generally moderately severe, i.e. not just out for a few minutes, but hours, or overnight.

        The breakdowns I've encountered are not by any means rare, though severe issues such as being unavailable for hours at a time are. More times a day than I can be bothered counting, the transaction takes long enough to process that my customers get worried, say there should be enough money in the account, ask if it always takes this long, etc. At least once or twice a day it fails to get through to the bank at all - on a good day. On a bad day, we might get a couple of dozen times where it won't get through

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        In a capitalist system, no cash means being a slave to those who give you permission to access anything. So what exactly do you do moron, when the bank says no, where the fuck do you go, no lawyers, no transfers from anyone else, phone account shut, you can walk to nowhere. Either capitalism has to go or cash has to fucking stay and that is an or fucking else, I am no ones fucking slave, I will not ask for permission to fucking live.

    • The only EFTPOS failures I've experienced in the last ten years have been caused by damaged magstripes or removing the card too quickly when I was first using contactless. Both were very easy to solve.

      As for the privacy concerns, for small purchases it hardly matters. Medium purchases could already be visible to some extent by irregular withdrawals, and large purchases already require traceable payment forms anyway. A concerned and determined person could conceivably hide most (but not all) transactions fro

  • I haven't heard of any talk of this being an goal, but, besides the usual objections there are still many practical obstacles. I do mostly use the tap-n-go facilities (direct charge to your account, without need for a pin, for purchases up to $100 AUD) but there are plenty of places that have:
    • * minimum purchase amount to use
    • * surcharges
    • * both

    Not to mention not every vendor has it, or network reception isn't always there for the reader to connect. So yeah, maybe one day but we won't be the first.

    • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      I can't see a $4.00 takeaway coffee returning much profit after the bank takes its share.

      "Tap-and-go", but only if your purchase exceeds $15, otherwise, what?

      • I almost never use cash. Tap N go / paywave everything. And now I have the facility on my phone I use cash even less.

      • by ColaMan ( 37550 )

        Then don't buy from there. They get the hint eventually.

        But thinking about it, I've haven't seen any places with the tap and go hardware acutally doing a surcharge or a minimum. There might be some sort of agreement in the background with regards to that.

        Plenty of places stick 50 cents on "normal" eftpos transactions if the amount is less than $10 though.

  • Who's "we"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zephvark ( 1812804 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @09:46PM (#54115921)

    It's always interesting how the Media guys consider themselves as part of the government. "It's our money! How dare the people keep it!"

    >"It's estimated that somewhere between about $3.5 and $5 billion in Australia every year is lost in tax revenue due to the sort of cash economy,"

    "Lost in tax revenue". That is, it's the government's money, and the citizens are just thieves who are stealing it.

    Let's correct that, shall we?

    "It's estimated that somewhere between about $3.5 and $5 billion in Australia every year is saved by the people..."

    • Re:Who's "we"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:04PM (#54115997)

      It's not just about taxes. It's about control. If we can just turn your money off we own you. You're a serf then, not even a peasant. First get the guns, then the money. Now you're less than nothing. Whoever controls the government owns all those serfs.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        It's not just about taxes. It's about control. If we can just turn your money off we own you. You're a serf then, not even a peasant. First get the guns, then the money. Now you're less than nothing. Whoever controls the government owns all those serfs.

        This, except it's less about govt control and more about ensuring corporate profits.

        Taxes are just an excuse. Its all about ensuring the Big 4 banks get their cut out of everything you buy. Yep, when you pay by card a percentage of that goes to the card and credit providers.

        This article is just another brainfart from a useless and inept conservative government who knows it's going to be out in the next election no matter what. If they really cared about lost tax revenue they'd look at the big end of town. $

      • It's not just about taxes. It's about control. If we can just turn your money off we own you. You're a serf then, not even a peasant. First get the guns, then the money. Now you're less than nothing. Whoever controls the government owns all those serfs.

        And how is that different from where you live?

    • So, we live in a society and all...

      Anyway, the author doesn't say "we."

    • Re:Who's "we"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by trawg ( 308495 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @04:06AM (#54117001) Homepage

      "Lost in tax revenue". That is, it's the government's money, and the citizens are just thieves who are stealing it.

      Let's correct that, shall we?

      "It's estimated that somewhere between about $3.5 and $5 billion in Australia every year is saved by the people..."

      This'd be fine if it was being "saved by the people", but the reality is it's often being "saved" by unscrupulous business owners who are deliberately working in cash to avoid paying their rightful share of tax.

      You can be all libertarian about what a great success this for the citizens or how people have a duty to minimise their taxes or whatever - but in many cases what this means is people legitimately are not paying their fair share and other businesses that do are put at a disadvantage.

      As an Australian I would say that people generally are not as opposed to "taxes" as the average American; we see the benefits of them all the time in our healthcare system and so on. Maybe I'm biased - I'm a small business owner - but I certainly want other businesses correctly paying their taxes and not dealing in cash for the sole reason of being able to avoid correct reporting. If they don't, it puts more strain on me as a citizen and more strain on me as a business owner.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Odd way of looking at it. Citizens voted for sales tax, and when people dodge it that is denying other citizens the revenue and services that they voted for.

      Far from being a noble way to screw the thieving government out of a few bucks, you are actually just delaying your neighbour's heart bypass by a week or two.

  • A point here? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_Bionic_lemming ( 446569 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:01PM (#54115979)

    Cashless means everything costs more, including paying your child an allowance for mowing the lawn because it's taxed.

  • by Thor Ablestar ( 321949 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:04PM (#54115999)

    All this cashless society has the main problem that during any serious cataclysm that kills the communication infrastructure the trade just stops. Not only the global nuclear cataclysm and EMP but any kind of local cataclysm like Katrina or war in Syria. And if the trade stops the hungry people could rob since they could not buy.

    Moreover, I feel that the more Western is the society the higher the unrest. Some Somalians could organize a government-less society based on traditional law, in the First World it's just impossible. We Russians survived the wild capitalism of 1990-s because in any crisis there was impossible to foreclose or cut off the electricity and heat. Next such crisis could produce hordes of homeless.

    • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      I think the proponents of this system should take a close look at north Queensland over the next week. Tropical cyclone Debbie is about to hit the coast near Bowen in the next day or so.

      Let's see how that EFTPOS infrastructure holds up when people need to buy essentials such as bottled water, canned food, generator fuel, etc (and beer, of course). It won't matter if the problem lies with the water-logged EFTPOS terminal, the local exchange, or the flood-damaged fibre cable down the street, "tap-and-go" just

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      All this cashless society has the main problem that during any serious cataclysm that kills the communication infrastructure the trade just stops.

      Also, on a more immediate note, I don't particularly want to pay 30c+1.9% fee every time I pay back my friend for buying my movie ticket or lunch.
      (or a monthly fee to have zero-cost transfers to a pre-approved list of friends)

    • It doesn't even need a disaster. In a few situations it's required no more than someone digging in the wrong place to kill a link between a city and where the funds are being processed. The trend is towards processing in less locations so fragility is increasing.
      I expect a major storm hitting Manilla would fuck up the payment processing of a large number of US based banks and a few others. Consider the hard drive shortage when Bangkok got flooded only for communication.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If any EMP goes off payment systems will be the least of your worries. There will be a huge shortage of food due to refrigeration and farming machinery failures. Most trucks and other delivery systems will fail. People won't be buying stuff, they will be getting it air-dropped by the military in crates.

    • A few years ago, we had a microburst that messed up our power for a few days. I stopped at a store on the way to staying at my GF's (who still had power) to grab some extra snacks. The store was open, but they had a big sign on the front, "CASH ONLY". IIRC, the bank was one of the many places that was closed, so I would have been SOL if I hadn't had cash in my wallet.

  • ATM decline (Score:4, Informative)

    by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:05PM (#54116009)

    The supermarket duopoly offer POS cash withdrawals with no fee.

    Contrast that with an ATM where you have to hunt for your bank's machine or face an extortionate $2 charge to withdraw from a rival bank's machine. Hence an increasing number of people just get $100 or so out in cash when they buy their groceries.

    • You're only being charged $2/ATM transaction? Unfortunately that's considered a good deal.
      • Comparatively cheap? I did notice it was something ridiculous like 5 euro when I withdrew money from a Spanish ATM on vacation recently.

      • I was, then I moved to Europe where legally the banks can't charge for using a rivals machine even if that rival is in a different country.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      The supermarket duopoly offer POS cash withdrawals with no fee.

      Contrast that with an ATM where you have to hunt for your bank's machine or face an extortionate $2 charge to withdraw from a rival bank's machine. Hence an increasing number of people just get $100 or so out in cash when they buy their groceries.

      Supermarkets only offer that because the government mandated it.

      Here in the UK, I can go to any banks ATM and withdraw money free of charge because the government said they had to let me. The govt has also put a limit on the amount banks can charge merchants for accepting cards. The price the British are paying for this is that we don't get useless rewards cards that give us imaginary points. Oh, and most things are cheaper here. I'm earning a good A$10,000 less than I was in Australia but still saving t

    • Contrast that with an ATM where you have to hunt for your bank's machine or face an extortionate $2 charge to withdraw from a rival bank's machine.

      My credit union belongs to an ATM co-op, you insensitive clod! I can deposit or withdraw money all over the place without any fees. Lately all the ATMs take cash without an envelope and count it for you while you wait, so I have no qualms about doing so, either. Maybe your bank is just shit.

  • Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:11PM (#54116029)

    Bring India in as an example. They royally screwed over their poorer citizens when they 'retired' their old cash and didn't have enough new bank notes ready to replace it.

    It would be interesting to see a graph of household debt vs adoption of cashless payment methods. An anecdotal point: Germany has pretty low household debt and relies primarily on cash for personal transactions. The idea being; if you don't have the money in your pocket, you don't buy it. Cashless transactions are a good way to either get people to run up debt in the form of a line of credit or overdraft fees. I smell more income for banks here.

    • Cashless transactions are a good way to either get people to run up debt in the form of a line of credit or overdraft fees

      Not every cashless transactions are on credit, and I don't see any debit card accounts in Europe that allow overdraw.

      The argument itself is stupid. If you don't have cash you don't buy it, well what if you needed it? If you didn't need it and bought it just because you have cash then maybe psychiatric care is more suitable for you than keeping your wallet empty.

      The arse backwards everything needs to be cash in Germany is stupid. I hate carrying around wads of cash and coin to get through the day. It's impor

  • by ThatsNotPudding ( 1045640 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:13PM (#54116037)
    Real time tracking of every financial transaction of your life. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
  • Reading the article I see the push for this cashless system is to assure that the government gets their cut of the deal. I have an idea, do away with sales taxes and get your revenue by means less likely to get subverted. How many ways do people need to be taxed? Should not one form of taxes be enough? I assume Australia is much like any other Anglosphere nation where there is a sales tax, income tax, property tax, "sin" tax (on alcohol, tobacco, and such), homeowner tax, Homer tax, bear tax, poll tax, pole tax, polecat tax, poll cat tax, cat on a pole tax, and a tax tax.

    Where is it written that a government *MUST* tax sales? I'm not saying governments do not or should not have the ability to impose any taxes, only that the number of taxes imposed by most governments is excessive. I know why governments impose taxes like this, it hides just how much money they are collecting by spreading it around so that it is difficult to see just how much the government is taking. I believe that a government that is honest with its citizens would make the taxes simple.

    They are fighting a battle they cannot win. If they impose restrictions on the movement of cash then people will revert to barter.

    This also gets into the "mark of the beast" territory from Christian tradition. You can call it just a superstition if you like but psychologists, sociologists, and economists have made connections between Christian tradition and a healthy society. I'm not saying following every Christian belief will bring an ideal society, only that we've seen Christian societies excel where others did not. I say it may be helpful to see the Bible as a historical document, full of parables, advice, and warnings for building a healthy society.

    I know people will feel the urge to mod me down for getting all religious. This is not about religion though, but religion does play a part in this. There will be people that oppose this on religious grounds. There will be people that oppose this because they see the hazards this has on society. These are not mutually exclusive groups. Removing the ability for people to conduct business with cash is dangerous, and some people roughly 2000 years ago warned us of this. I believe that we should think real hard about what a cashless society means. It won't take divine intervention to destroy society, we'll do that on our own.

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )

      They are fighting a battle they cannot win. If they impose restrictions on the movement of cash then people will revert to barter.

      Not if being cashless is easy and convenient.

      • Going cashless with never be easy and convenient, at least compared to cash.

        My debit card may be near universal but it's not ever more convenient than cash. If they make it more convenient than it is, like removing the need for ID, a PIN, or signature, then theft becomes a problem. The easy thing about cash is that I can walk to the corner store while half awake, get a coffee, toss the cashier a bill, gather my change, and I don't have to try to remember a PIN or even my name in my decaffeinated state.

        Som

    • by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:59PM (#54116193)

      Sales tax and a number of other taxes were phased out when the GST (goods and service tax) was introduced. It didn't simplify the system as much as it should have but it went partway there. Yes, we have income tax, but I don't find it burdensome - even the first AUD$18,200 is tax-free.There's no property tax, but someone is proposing to phase out contract stamp duty in favour of a property tax. Yes, there are "sin' taxes. Don't know what a homeowner tax is, but we do pay council rates for roads & parks, sewerage, rubbish collection, etc. No poll tax.

      Wasteful spending aside, taxes are the way a government collects revenue to spend on public utilities and services - major infrastructure like interstate highways, health care (Australia has universal free health care), defense, and so on. All that is common knowledge.

      The GST was proposed to even out the tax burden - have a broad-based goods and service tax (with some exemptions), instead of a narrow tax here, and another one there, and more over there. It spreads the tax burden more evenly over the population. The super-rich can avoid income tax with creative accounting, but they can't avoid 10% GST on their fine wines and home cinemas. That's the theory, anyway.

    • Doubt the religious argument will get much traction here in Aus. Also gotta admit I'm not seeing the link but ok.

      As for the tax system a sales tax is by far the most attractive tax mechanism. The majority of taxes in Australia are collected at the federal level, those being income tax and GST (sales tax). The states to impose a number of other taxes, but these generally revolve around property taxes and a payroll tax.

      Sales taxes are good because they spread the tax burden across the widest population and

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        As for the tax system a sales tax is by far the most attractive tax mechanism.

        Why? Sales tax is inherently regressive. The less money you have, the higher percentage of your income you lose on sales tax (being that you spend more of your income on things that are taxed as sales instead of, say, investing it).

        Why would a socialist country even want a sales tax?

    • by dargaud ( 518470 )

      Where is it written that a government *MUST* tax sales?

      The way I see it is that if your taxe system is simple, plenty of people find workarounds and don't (legally) pay taxes. Then you close that loophole and tax what they were doing. Rinse, repeat and you end up with a 5 thousand page tax system only experts working for Apple understand and they are the only ones not (legally) paying taxes at this point. In other words I see this complexity of the tax system as necessary evil and advocates of 'flat tax' or other 'simple' systems as idiots.

    • by dbIII ( 701233 )

      Where is it written that a government *MUST* tax sales?

      Because relying on import duties caused pissed off shipowners to send the Fourth Crusade to hit Constantinople and relying on a single commodity has really fucked over Venezuela. The simple, all eggs in one basket ways have been tried so if a society wants to fund infrastructure their governing body has to grab cash wherever they can find it while pissing off the minority of the people.

      This also gets into the "mark of the beast" territory from Christia

    • You are a religious nut. For every successful christian country I can name you several failed ones.
      Basically the only religion that has a 100% corellation to success is shintoism, and that only because of a sample size of 1.

    • As a jew I don't know christianity very well, can you please explain to me where and how does christianity talk against a cashless society? (This is not a critical reply, I just want to learn).

    • Reading the article I see the push for this cashless system is to assure that the government gets their cut of the deal.

      That seems to be a common thought. But having some (tiny) experience in government payment platforms, my opinion is it is merely the govt (or think of it as people just like you) using technology to improve efficiency.That's all.
      Cash won't be going anywhere soon, schools, charities, and all sorts of small industry rely on it. The govt (people just like you) know this too.

    • by awol ( 98751 )

      Sales tax is more usually expressed as Value Added Tax or Goods and Services Tax in countries like Australia however they are normally categorised as consumption taxes. These are "policy" taxes with a view to taxing consumption at the end point of the chain of production (ie GST is a deductible input in the production of goods and services and so it is only the end consumer that actually "pays" the tax). It is not a question of MUST, but a question of the policy goals of the way in which the community is ta

    • Where is it written that a government *MUST* tax sales?

      *must*? No where.
      However different forms of taxes have different economic impacts. A sales tax is an efficient tax in how it affects GPD through prodding the supply and demand curves.

      The only wrong answer is to have a single form of tax. It is inefficient in the grand scheme, and reduces the number of handles a government has to maintain control over its economy, and more handles are good for governments and for citizens as it provides a wider variety of effective options to implement policy in an agreeable

  • Asutralia's rural internet is still pathetic, with some areas either unconnected or sporadically connected by pre-dialup speed satellite connections. There is literally no way Australia has any potential to go cashless in 3 years time.
  • Why is a news article in the form of a question? And why are statistics provided? Is it some sort of exam? If I didn't even know those statistics, how am I the expert to answer that question? Assuming they even put a comments section.

  • I'll be blunt. (Score:4, Informative)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday March 26, 2017 @11:51PM (#54116351)

    I don't fucking know.

  • Cashless as in broke. Yes.

  • If Australia is quickly becoming the first cashless society then the leading technology in enabling this will be extremely powerful.
    Australian banks, and more recently retailers [slashdot.org], fighting to take control back from Apple of their wireless payment system can now be seen in a different light.

  • Sweden is being derailed into becoming a cashless society.

    It is a change pushed by banks and related tech companies, so that they can make a little bit more money. Nobody else wants it.

    Leading politicians on a national level are not very interested in the issue - spending more time and energy on squabbling between themselves, pointing finger at each other's small mistakes than willing to take on real responsibility themselves.

  • And issued R2000 notes to replace them. Not exactly what I'd call eliminating.
  • Dear Funny Americans (Score:5, Informative)

    by wheelbarrio ( 1784594 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @06:11AM (#54117369)
    who have posted and then modded up all the anti-taxation posts here. It may come as a surprise to you but as an Australian, I'm pretty happy with any mechanism that means that more of any equitable tax that lawfully can be collected, is collected. Because:
    1. 1. I enjoy my access to excellent free universal healthcare.
    2. 2. I enjoy the fact that my children attend a good public school
    3. 3. I enjoy my country's federal (interstate) highway system
    4. 4. I enjoy the fact that unfunded seniors, the disabled and others unable to provide for themselves are not forced to live on the streets or depend on charity
    5. (I could go on...)

    and lastly, because if everyone pays their rightful share, each individual can pay less. This is not about "extra" taxation, or taxing "3, 4, 5" times, but simply applying the same rules everyone. It is amusing to me that you assume that everyone in the world has the same allergic reaction to paying taxes that you do, because you assume that everyone else in the world shares the same jaundiced view of government and the social contract that many of you do - not just those on the libertarian fringe either, it seems, but reg'lar folks who rather unbelievably to me and many in my country, elected a president that publicly brags about paying little or no taxes. In Australia a political campaign would be dead in the water after such an admission, - the "obligation to shareholders blah blah blah" argument being self-serving bullshit in the case of a privately-held company like Trump Organization anyhow - because although we're not the fair and equitable nation we once were there's a pretty strong feeling that our obligations must balance our privileges. Of which we have many. As it happens I don't think GST or other consumption taxes that this kind of payment system will help with tracking are the best kind of tax, but they're not entirely regressive either. For mine, a single, universal no-exemption financial transaction tax is the way to go.

    • by moeinvt ( 851793 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @07:57AM (#54117873)

      The U.S. federal government has a $4 TRILLION annual budget, more than 22% of GDP. State and local governments in the USA spend another 18% of GDP, so call it $7 TRILLION total in government spending. That's more than $20,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. Don't you think that's more than enough wealth to fund a government?

      I'm glad that you feel you're getting value for your money. Would you feel any differently if 25% of your federal taxes were being used to bomb and kill people in foreign countries and to maintain a worldwide network of over 700 permanent military bases? How would you like paying taxes to house the largest per-capita prison population in the world? What if your schools were expensive as hell, but still produced sub-par results? We fund some absolutely enormous welfare programs for seniors, the poor & the disabled, but these programs are unsustainable. Anyone under age 50 is now paying taxes based on government promises that will never be kept.
      (I could go on)

      And that's only the spending part. The U.S. federal government has also given us GATT, NAFTA, the WTO treaty, The Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, the FISA Revisions Act, the 2012 NDAA, established a ubiquitous and largely secret surveillance state and militarized our police forces. And even with the $1 trillion they spend on "defense" they can't "defend" our borders against an invasion by 20 million illegal immigrants.

      And you wonder why a USA resident just might have a negative view of government and be opposed to any further taxation? Not only are we being screwed out of a huge portion of our wealth, many of us are paying for shit that we don't want and for future benefits that we will never receive.

      • All your points are excellent, and I agree with them, but they justify only a scepticism of U.S. government efficiency and spending priorities, and don't explain the general revulsion at the concept of taxation. Although everywhere these days "tax" is becoming a dirty word in politics, to the great detriment of intelligent policy discourse. Always always it is politicised spending programs (defence, law and order) that get the attention, and the fiscal conservatives grudgingly buy in to these programs often
  • Cash is obviously very useful in the black market, and I suspect fighting against it is a primary motivation for going cashless.
    The interesting question becomes : what will replace cash in the black market? Prepaid cards, cryptocurrencies, foreign cash, precious metals...?

  • I thought that Australia got rid of their paper money when they moved to plastic polymer notes years ago.

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