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The Almighty Buck

'The Cashless Society is a Con -- and Big Finance is Behind It' (theguardian.com) 476

Posted by EditorDavid from the moving-your-money-around dept.
An anonymous reader quotes this opinion piece by former derivatives broker Brett Scott: Banks are closing ATMs and branches in an attempt to 'nudge' users towards digital services -- and it's all for their own benefit... I recently got a letter from my bank telling me that they are shutting down local branches because "customers are turning to digital", and they are thus "responding to changing customer preferences". I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches... I am much more likely to "choose" a digital option if the banks deliberately make it harder for me to choose a non-digital option. In behavioural economics this is referred to as "nudging". If a powerful institution wants to make people choose a certain thing, the best strategy is to make it difficult to choose the alternative...

Digital systems may be "convenient", but they often come with central points of failure. Cash, on the other hand, does not crash. It does not rely on external data centres, and is not subject to remote control or remote monitoring. The cash system allows for an unmonitored "off the grid" space. This is also the reason why financial institutions and financial technology companies want to get rid of it. Cash transactions are outside the net that such institutions cast to harvest fees and data.

A cashless society brings dangers. People without bank accounts will find themselves further marginalised, disenfranchised from the cash infrastructure that previously supported them. There are also poorly understood psychological implications about cash encouraging self-control while paying by card or a mobile phone can encourage spending. And a cashless society has major surveillance implications.
While a cashless society might make it cheaper to run a bank, "A cashless society is not in your interest..." argues the author.

"We must recognise every cash machine that is shut down as another step in financial institutions' campaign to nudge you into their digital enclosures."
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'The Cashless Society is a Con -- and Big Finance is Behind It' More

'The Cashless Society is a Con -- and Big Finance is Behind It'

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  • it's about both profit and control (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ooloorie ( 4394035 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @12:44AM (#56988306)

    It's not only banks/financial institutions, but also governments that like cashless societies, because it gives them better surveillance and more control.

    The good thing is: they'll likely overplay their hand and lose control: if governments get rid of cash, people will find alternative payment means completely outside the control of banks and governments. Bitcoin didn't quite get it right technically, but systems like that will catch on.

    • 'Echange Services' will step into the void (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I have seen the banks closing up shop in Europe and the Middle East and making it hard for the general public, with the result that 'Exchange Services' are popping up everywhere, doing exactly what the bank branches used to do. So, it will backfire in the US, same as in the rest of the world.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by inking ( 2869053 )

      The good thing is: they'll likely overplay their hand and lose control: if governments get rid of cash, people will find alternative payment means completely outside the control of banks and governments. Bitcoin didn't quite get it right technically, but systems like that will catch on.

      What exactly is good about your “good thing”? It enables you to purchase your tomatoes anonymously—totally worth it, I am sure—at the cost of criminal groups having an easy means of exchange for profits derived from their contraband businesses. You can fantasize about how some dystopian science fiction story is totally coming true now, but removing a means of exchange from criminals and forcing them pay in kind makes the said criminal activity considerably less effective. Most people

      • Just because something is illegal doesn't make it bad. Like beer a decades ago in the US.

        And just because you get rid of US currency doesn't prevent the black market from hording or switching to something else to be the grease of commerce.

      • Lets track and harass everyone to catch a few criminals! - You 2018

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by inking ( 2869053 )
          Are you being harassed? Maybe you should file a police report.

          No, you know, let’s actively work against elected officials and towards making all our transactions absolutely anonymous and untraceable for the sole purpose of giving some privacy fetishist a hard-on. That’s totally reasonable and good for the society.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:it's about both profit and control (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @05:26AM (#56988870)

      They already have. There was a failure of the UK's PayPoint system. This is a means for those on low incomes to pay in advance for electricity and gas with special electronic meters. They go to a PayPoint shop, usually a corner newsagent or convenience store, wait in line behind the people buying scratchcard lottery tickets and making Western Union payments, then get the key "topped up", then go back home and insert the key to charge up the meter. A few days ago, this system failed and literally left customers in the dark.

      There was the failure of the TSB's banking systems due to an upgrade. Across the USA, there have been failures of the electronic benefit transfer system (EBT), leading to riots as people don't stock up on an emergency supply of food.

    • Re:it's about both profit and control (Score:5, Informative)

      by ma1wrbu5tr ( 1066262 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @10:40AM (#56989804) Journal
      Cashless means, ultimately, that no transaction happens without somebody getting to skim a little something off the top in the form of fees. You can't accept money digitally without paying somebody to provide that service. Some places even charge a "convenience fee" that is passed on to customers for paying a bill with a credit card. It's the pinnacle of racketeering.

      • Re:it's about both profit and control (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @01:18PM (#56990516)

        Cashless means, ultimately, that no transaction happens without somebody getting to skim a little something off the top in the form of fees. You can't accept money digitally without paying somebody to provide that service. Some places even charge a "convenience fee" that is passed on to customers for paying a bill with a credit card. It's the pinnacle of racketeering.

        A business that handles cash alone is still going to have associated costs - storage, reconciliation and transportation to the bank isn't free. Not to mention that a cash business runs an increased chance of employee theft.

        Then there is the opportunity loss - 75% of customers prefer paying for high value items on a debit or credit card rather than carrying around wads of cash (increased risk of loss). If you don't offer card payment then that's fine, but don't be surprised when they go to someone else who does.

        Finally, ever wondered why the supermarkets offer free cash-back? They are trying to get cash off their books because it's actually more expensive and time consuming to handle than digital money.

  • Not everything needs to be electronic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ptaff ( 165113 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @12:47AM (#56988314) Homepage

    It's not because technology allows it that it must be the preferred option (electronic voting is a poster child of the idea). I don't mind if my neighbor prefers being tracked with his credit card and iPay and Air Miles, but at this point, global customer insouciance seems to pave the road to forced global surveillance in every aspect of our lives; we don't need this crap, wake up people, thank you very much.

    • Everywhere I shop they take cash. Most places take credit cards. But almost nowhere have I seen anything that takes digital alternatives. Those that do are very usually food trucks so that people who look to be in their twenties can pay by phone.

      • Perhaps you don't get out much. Many POS systems have contact payments already built-in. With Apple Pay I've paid T-Mobile at their store, and bought items at New Seasons, Walgreens, McDonalds, and vending machines at the Community College and University in town. Those are just the ones off the top of my head. Admittedly, I haven't noticed cryptocurrency payments being accepted anywhere than online, but since I don't have any I haven't really bothered to look or inquire.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by starless ( 60879 )

          Perhaps you don't get out much. Many POS systems have contact payments already built-in. .

          That's contact-less

          So far I've found the place that contactless payments works best is Spain (at least compared
          to USA, Japan, France,and Italy).

          • Thanks for the correction, momentarily forgot the collective term. I did not try using it when in Japan. I would assume they should work with foreign currency as well as credit cards do. I'll have to try in December during my layover.

            I've spent a lot of time in Taiwan which has been largely a cash society, with few credit cards, and only ATM cards, no debit cards (that I know of). I have never heard of someone there getting, or writing, a check, as all employers require workers to setup an account at their

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Teun ( 17872 )
        Only a few days ago I wanted to use some facilities at a fuel station along a major German route and found out you need coins to get in...
        Lucky for me there was a possibility to pay by card at the cash register but it was not exactly user friendly or efficient/speedy.
        Also, in The Netherlands public transport has gone cashless, you want to ride a bus you need to pay by debit card.
        The main reason is to halt the robberies of bus drivers.
        It's not really an issue as virtually everyone has access to debit car

  • Take it one step further (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22, 2018 @12:50AM (#56988324)

    If they're so insistent on taking cash away, take it one step further in the opposite direction and remember, in your neighborhood, you are surrounded by a ton of people with a ton of valuable skill sets. Barter where you can and cut both the bank and the government out of the equation entirely. I just traded some of my IT time and knowledge for a neighbors expertise in electrical and plumbing. We both came out ahead all the happier, with no bills, taxes, invoices etc. to tally up once the taxman arrives. Not every interaction has to revolve around money, and I managed to make a couple good friends as an added bonus.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by flatulus ( 260854 )
      I hope you make sure to report that transaction as "income". Tax law requires that you do. The proceeds of barter are income to the IRS.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C.pdf, Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ.pdf, Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship)."
        https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by inking ( 2869053 )
      Stupid. Assuming your trade was entirely fair with regard to the utility provided by both sides—it wasn’t—you would have each been better off performing the transaction through a market. The fact that exchange in kind hampers productivity has been known for centuries now.

      • ... you would have each been better off performing the transaction through a market.

        I assume you're being sarcastic. If the transaction was satisfactory to both of them, there's no difference between this and another other market transaction - except for lower transaction costs and receiving some extra intangible value.

        They're better off with this trade than if they'd spent time researching competing providers, splitting the deal into two pieces with money, paying the government a cut, and spending the ext

    • Cashless transactions are trackable by big advertising brother AND by me.

      I have couple of cash transactions regularly occurring in my life and it's an extreme pain in the ass to track.

      Cashless is a trade-off between convenience and privacy

  • Flag this topic as "obvious" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by flatulus ( 260854 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @12:50AM (#56988326)
    Banks hate cash. It requires physical handling. It can be stolen. It wears out. It "isn't working for us" as it sits in a vault, an ATM, or an armored car. Electronic money can be working all the time - earning interest, being leveraged, being arbitraged, whatever. Cash is so "static" compared to electronic funds.

    The Brave New World is almost here. Add an implant and the process will be complete. Can you imagine being arrested on suspicion of a serious crime because 30 minutes prior to the crime, in the "walking distance" proximity, you bought a pack of gum with your implant (or your debit card, or your smartphone)?

    I'm rather old, my friends, and as you revel in your youth (assuming you are there), marvel at how anyone could be happy to be older. This world is yours. I'll be in it for a little longer, but not nearly as long as so many of you. I suppose cashless is your future - not so much mine.

    • Re:Flag this topic as "obvious" (Score:5, Informative)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @12:56AM (#56988342)

      Money can be stolen even when it's not cash. Credit cards get stolen and those companies have to cover the fraud themselves. Wasn't it a few days ago that Slashdot reported a digital coin site had been hacked and robbed?

    • Can you imagine being arrested on suspicion of a serious crime because 30 minutes prior to the crime, in the "walking distance" proximity, you bought a pack of gum with your implant (or your debit card, or your smartphone)?

      That happens already without the sci-fi scenario. It comes with a non-zero chance of being killed, and subsequently having your name dragged in the mud by the media.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      Cash in the bank's vault works for them, they do include it in their books as security.

    • . Can you imagine being arrested on suspicion of a serious crime because 30 minutes prior to the crime, in the "walking distance" proximity, you bought a pack of gum with your implant (or your debit card, or your smartphone)?

      That would be proof of exactly nothing. It could lead police to a potential suspect, that's all

      Let's examine the 4 quadrants.

      You're innocent and no such trace exists = nothing new

      You're guilty and no such trace exists = nothing new

      You're innocent and such trace exists = it proves you were around. They still need to seek dirt on you, and possibly dozens of other people. You have no real reason to lie about being out of town.
      You're guilty and such trace exist = they still need to find the dirt. At least they

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        You assume prosecutors want to put guilty people in jail. In fact they just want to put anyone convenient in jail. So, months later you find yourself homeless, jobless, and in debt to your lawyer up to your eyeballs. News of your arrest made the evening news, news of your acquittal made the back page next to the obits.

    • Re:Flag this topic as "obvious" (Score:5, Informative)

      by gordguide ( 307383 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @02:25AM (#56988518)

      Banks hate cash. It requires physical handling. It can be stolen. It wears out. It "isn't working for us" as it sits in a vault, an ATM, or an armored car. Electronic money can be working all the time - earning interest, being leveraged, being arbitraged, whatever. Cash is so "static" compared to electronic funds.

      The Brave New World is almost here. Add an implant and the process will be complete. Can you imagine being arrested on suspicion of a serious crime because 30 minutes prior to the crime, in the "walking distance" proximity, you bought a pack of gum with your implant (or your debit card, or your smartphone)?

      I'm rather old, my friends, and as you revel in your youth (assuming you are there), marvel at how anyone could be happy to be older. This world is yours. I'll be in it for a little longer, but not nearly as long as so many of you. I suppose cashless is your future - not so much mine.

      Actually, cash and any / all deposits and withdraws whether by check, electronic transaction etc starts "working" every night as it's reconciled with the Federal Reserve (or any nation's Central Bank). The true means that bank deposits start "working" is when a Bank makes a loan, which creates money out of thin air ... when they make a loan, they write a check to you (or deposit funds in your account) and that money from that moment exists. Prior to the loan, it didn't exist. That's how banking works (and why it's a critical step in the prosperity of the economy).

      Those transactions as well are reconciled with the Central Banks. Central Banks control the money supply by manipulating interest rates ... higher rates mean loans are harder to make, lower rates mean loans are easier to make. Banks only keep a small portion of their loan portfolio in deposits. It varies but can be below 10% deposits to 90% loans. The asset to loan ratio is also manipulated by Central Banks to control the money supply.

      So 100 million in cash and checks puttering around a city in an Armoured Car are not only working, they are enabling the bank to make $900 million (for example) in new loans created out of thin air (the borrower's risk of paying it back is the real currency of banking).

      Easy Credit is good for the economy although it also runs the risk of inflation, so they can't just do what they want without repercussions. But it creates money that otherwise would not exist, that money is spent (the old Econ textbooks would say a new dollar is spent 7 times, creating $7 in economic benefit. That multiplier might have changed since I was in college, but not by much and with electronic transactions, because they are so quick, it might even be higher than 7x now).

      • I should add that the borrower's risk of repayment is the most important part of all the above. If you don't pay back the loan, the bank has to reduce it's lending because is screws with the 10% or whatever amount is required as deposits. So they literally have to start calling in loans to get more cash on deposit (as many business loans are "demand loans" which means the bank can demand the money you borrowed back at any moment they choose. As long as the loan is out, the business only pays the monthly int

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by inking ( 2869053 )
      Banks don’t hate cash. Whatever costs it results in are paid by you. It literally does not matter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mikael ( 484 )

      They are doing that with the distances of mobile phones to mobile service masts.

    • Most of us are carrying an electronic signal bouy 24x7x365. Iâ(TM)m typing on it right now. Is there a law forcing me to? No, but itâ(TM)s convenient. Electronic cash is convenient. Facebook is convenient. The cloud is convenient. People want convenience. We have a democracy and itâ(TM)s not like anybody would vote Hitler into power, right? Oh, wait...

  • Is a cashless society is stupid at this stage? (Score:5, Informative)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @01:03AM (#56988370)

    I love cash, but electronic money is more convenient, more versatile and great.

    Just ask a non-bancarized guy in Kenya or Tanzania using M-Pesa about it... And trust me when I tell you that Safaricom and Vodafone did not implement this from the goodness of their hears, but for pure profit, and yet, it ended up raising the living standards of the people at large, and specialy of those non-bancarized.

    Sources:
    The economist Sept 26-oct 2, 2009
    And IEEE Spectrum here:
    https://spectrum.ieee.org/stat... [ieee.org]

    Yes, if we look at electronic money and a cashless society from the optic of a westener who has enough diposable income to aford a computer and knows what this "internet" thing is, is all doom and gloom.

    But once we try to get ourselves in the whorn -out shoes of less fortunate people that make less than $1 a day (and for me, being in Venezuela, this is easier, as is not a tought experiemnt, but a reality I see everyday) we see that electronic money can be beneficial for everyone, warts and all...

    So, I for one, welcome our e-money overlords... Yes, I wish there would still be cash, but... whatever benefits the many is ok by me...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There's a big problem with a cashless society that hasn't been mentioned but is far greater than the aforementioned issues such as surveillance. With cash there is no way for anyone to prevent a particular transaction, given that the buyer and the seller are both willing, from happening. In a completely cashless society, however, there is some kind of company that has to handle the transactions. This company might say "no, we're not dealing with that" to a particular type of transaction.

      The risk of this hap

  • because people stopped showing up. I stopped going to banks when I could take a picture of checks and have it deposit to my account. I don't miss waiting in line at banks. And no, the long waits weren't because they were closing branches. They understaffed like everybody else did post 2000 when companies realized they could just make us wait since there was little or no competition left for essential services.

    Now, if you want to see the banks take a real hit do Post Office banking.

  • Hong Kong - almost cashless (Score:3)

    by Camembert ( 2891457 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @01:21AM (#56988402)
    I currently live in Hong Kong and find that cash can largely be replaced with two notable exceptions.
    Most popular is the use of the octopus card - it is the public transport card that many, so very many shops accept as well. And then there is visa /mastercard/apple pay cash quick payments in many shops as well.
    Frankly, I love that.
    The exceptions: infuriatingly (not just me thinks that), local taxis demand cash. Also the smallest street stalls or wet market stalls are cash only.

    • It surprises me that Octopus is ~20 years old and still arguably more advanced than many more recent players. It does piss me off though that my "vintage" card will need to be replaced next time I come through... if it is still honored at all...

  • Naive Fearmongering (Score:3)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @01:30AM (#56988424)

    Look forward a few years, and the situation could easily be reversed. You know those cameras that are pointing at every cash register in your average store? Soon (if not already) they'll be high-res enough to read the serial numbers on every dollar bill you hand over or flash in your wallet/money roll. Just like automated facial recognition, this'll be done automatically; suddenly, cash can be followed from one transaction to another, and connected to people thanks to said facial recognition. Expect the ATM to record serials, and the cameras at your bank. This'll be done in the name of 'tracking money stolen in robberies' but will be used for other purposes. Expect a 'serial number blacklist' that causes a flag to be raised if you use flagged cash, too many flags and the cops are shown the tapes or the facial recognition blacklists you. You also get blacklisted if the facial recognition determines you're a known retail thief/robber. Expect Walmart greeters to be notified not to allow someone in because the facial recognition recognized someone who was blacklisted. With facial recognition, your cash purchases can still be correlated into a profile and shared/sold, like supposedly happens with credit cards.

    Now look at open-source end-to-end encrypted communication software like Signal. And the cryptocurrencies that happen to be defacto decentralized. One can easily imagine (in the unlikely event it doesn't already exist) a situation where digital exchanges of currency are anonymous, unblacklistable, and decentralized. Also, since it's decentralized you don't have to worry about a single point of failure... failing. As opposed to a computerized cash register that crashes and is unable to accept cash, and the employees are forbidden from selling items not sold through the register.

    I've seen people who are reticent to break a large bill because once they break it, they'll spend it because they treat small bills as worthless. Others treat cash as 'free money' that they blow whereas numbers in an account are 'important money' that they don't touch. If these people went full cash, they wouldn't save enough to pay their bills. Also, is your annoying relative or whatever hitting you up for money regularly? "Sorry, no cash on me", problem solved. If you always carry cash on you then it's an ongoing problem. Credit cards often have points or other rewards/cash back programs, with cash you get nothing like that.

    Institutions want to get rid of cash because handling cash is difficult to automate, and cash has higher marginal cost to guard, particularly from the handlers. Cash also tends to get stolen, despite all the money spent on guarding it. It also gets counterfeited, lost, destroyed, and requires quite a lot of money to produce (for the treasury). Forget ATMs, if society goes cashless, banks can get rid of many of their branches. Loan applications can be done via Skype video calls or whatever. Kill checks and money orders and branches wouldn't really be needed for much.

  • Where I live, NW-Europe, the driving force for going cashless are people like me who prefer the convenience.
    I hate having to carry British Pounds, Euro's, Swiss Francs, Danish and Norwegian Kroner.
    We've very recently seen an hours-long failure in the Maestro/Mastercard system here in Europe, lucky were those that also carried cash or a Visa based card.
    Years ago I ran into a similar an issue when I wanted to use my debit card to pay fuel, the filling station was prepared and had IOU's to fill out that inc

  • Just because something is beneficial for someone doesn't make it a con. It's not like people are dying to use cash and are tricked into using cards or other digital means. What the banks say is true: people have largely moved out of cash simply because it's less convenient. Most people buy online these days, where cash is impractical, and if they can use the same means of payment in brick and mortar, why wouldn't they?

    So sure, banks do get something from this too, but likely not nearly as much as users, mos

  • A cashless society brings dangers. People without bank accounts will find themselves further marginalised

    I'm often fascinated by the hoops Americans are willing to jump through to avoid having to give people basic rights, but this is the first time I've heard it argued that we should keep cash around to avoid having to offer poor people basic banking services.

  • Seems so silly... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @02:57AM (#56988572) Homepage

    I recently pulled up to a drive through of a nationwide bank chain to find that it had closed just a week before; I had to go into the lobby and stand in line.

    While in line, a "personal banker" approached and asked if she could help me with anything. I commented about having to get out of my car and walk across the parking lot to come inside while it was raining.She explained that the bank was removing DT tellers at most locations, because so many people use digital payments.with their phones, so no one was using the DTs anymore.

    I explained that I know just how secure phones are, and that I would never trust financial stuff to a device that is so easily stolen. "If they get your phone, they can get just about anything else."

    She assured me that that was not true, and even if it were, I would only have to use their APP to track what was going on, and to report the bogus transactions.

    "You mean the APP on my stolen phone, where your website sends the confirmation text for your two-factor authentication?"

    She didn't appreciate the irony...

  • In Sweden (Score:3)

    by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @03:01AM (#56988576) Homepage Journal

    In Sweden it's hard to find shops that don't take cards or other means of electronic payments like Swish. And a growing number of shops are cashless, often restaurants.

    Even taxis, parkings, road tolls and similar services normally takes electronic payments.

    It can go months between each time I use cash these days.

    • Even taxis, parkings, road tolls and similar services normally takes electronic payments.

      As do many street beggars, and school children selling cookies and charity flowers ("majblommor").

      It is actually getting slightly hard to be cash-only for day-to-day life in Sweden. As mentioned, many establishments have turned cash-only. It is legal to demand electronic payment if both parties have agreed to before the service is rendered. A note by the counter or on the door is regarded enough. Without such an "agreement", you can insist on paying in cash. They can refuse to accept it, but then it is not

  • Here in Australia EFTPOS allows me to go cashless 90% of the time. There are some places that still dont take EFTPOS (e.g. the local kebab shop doesn't take cards and a bunch of food trucks I sometimes buy from also dont take cards) and there are a bunch of other places that do take cards but charge a fee for the privilage of using cards (the worst offender here is the ridiculous 5% fee all the taxis charge if you use a card instead of cash although the movie theaters I go to and some food places I go to al

  • ... is, apart from the per-payment-fee they want to profit from, one more obvious reason why every non-central bank wants to get rid of cash - they can create electronic money almost as much as they like in the existing fractional-reserve banking system. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Between cash and online transactions, there is a third option: Digital offline transactions.

    How would it work? You have a card, you load it with money, and then each time you want to buy something you pay with this card...no online connection required, the money value on the card is decreased.

    For security, not only the communication protocol would be encrypted, but it can also be setup in such a way that it requires entering a pin number for each transaction, with the card's small numeric keyboard.

    The state

  • 'The Cashless Society is a Con -- and Big Finance is Behind It'

    It's not a "con", "panacea", "revolution", "leap", "sign of the times" or any other journalist garbage term you invent four times a year.

    It's a complicated process. Stop generalizing it, instead report actual facts, you know, what you are supposed to do, "journalists".

  • The negative implications are already covered enough :-) Simply state that I don't disagree, but would like to point out the positive possibilities. A true cashless society would...

    Be less susceptible to theft. Both from the petty level and the corruption level. Bribing somebody would become suddenly more difficult. Other crimes would also become harder to profit from, as money-laundering becomes a nightmare.

    Be easier to tax fairly. Of course that is not a given, as incompetence runs wild in officialdom, bu

  • I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches...

    Did you go into your branch every day to justify its rent and the payment of staff? Correlation does not imply causation. Branches have been getting smaller and emptier for a long time now and the only evil nefarious reason is that people don't use them very much.

    My bank also sent me a letter telling me they were shutting down my closest branch, a branch I genuinely never knew existed because I haven't walked into a branch since opening the first account with the bank 4 years ago.

    People without bank accounts

    WTF? Homeless people have

  • Cashless? (Score:3)

    by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @08:04AM (#56989284)

    So, we should go back to gold coins?

    Do remember that once upon a time (less than a century ago), paper money wasn't considered "cash". Paper money was "banknotes", and the only real "cash" was gold and silver coins.

    Yeah, I'm sure that everyone will be really happy to haul one hundred pounds (45 kg) of gold to the dealer to buy a car. Or five hundred pounds (225 kg) of gold to buy a house....

    The only way you're going to get back to even your limited understanding of cash is if you stop using banks (no credit cards, no checks, no savings) and keep big piles of banknotes (yes, the Federal Reserve is a bank, technically) in your house. That'll go over real well right up till the time someone breaks in and steals your big pile of banknotes, and you suddenly have no way to buy food till payday....

  • Cashless society = = No privacy (Score:3)

    by biggaijin ( 126513 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @10:50AM (#56989842)

    Banks love the "cashless society" because they get a profit from every transaction everywhere. The government loves it because it provides a trail of breadcrumbs through every place you visit, complete with time stamps. Does the government really need to know which fast food outlet you prefer or where you go to buy groceries? I don't think so, but the data is being collected nevertheless.

  • Cashless is a terrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @02:09PM (#56990752)

    The bank or Government can freeze your accounts on a whim if they donâ(TM)t agree with what youâ(TM)re doing. Thus, they can control or influence what you do since you wonâ(TM)t have the option to use cash.

    Porn industry and Gun Dealers whoâ(TM)s accounts were closed for no reason other than the industry they represented come to mind for this.

    Going full digital will basically add a hidden tax to every purchase. A processing fee or something similar.

    Think of major CC vendors transaction fees.

    Full digital is also a surveillance States wet dream as every purchase can be tracked, flagged and / or categorized.

    Finally, the proliferation of malware and assorted nasty stuff designed to steal digital credentials for purposes of fraud is a real turn off for going cashless.

    Fix all the aforementioned problems and weâ(TM)ll talk about it. Until then I will use cash when I wish because I can.

  • legal pot shops are very cash only (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Sunday July 22, 2018 @03:02PM (#56990922)

    legal pot shops are very cash only and banks don't really want to deal with them.

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