This proposal may be due to the increased calls to ban cash: - Bloomberg: Bring on the cashless future [1] - FT: The benefits of scrapping cash [2] - Bloombe

This proposal may be due to the increased calls to ban cash: - Bloomberg: Bring on the cashless future [1] - FT: The benefits of scrapping cash [2] - Bloomberg: Europol Director Sees Case for Scrapping High-Value Banknotes [3] - Handelsblatt: The death of cash [4] - Norway's Biggest Bank Calls For Country To Stop Using Cash [5] - Spiegel: Leading German Economist Calls For Cash Ban [6] - Bloomberg: Citi Economist Says It's Time to Abolish Cash [7] - Telegraph: Bank Of England Chief Economist Calls For Cash Ban, Urges Negative Rates [8] And from a Morgan Stanley presentation, in which its head of EMEA equity research Huw van Steenis, points out [9]: "What I learned at Davos: We should move quickly to a cashless economy so that we could introduce negative rates well below 1% - policy maker" ..adding: "One of the most surprising comments this year came from a closed session on fintech where I sat next to someone in policy circles who argued that we should move quickly to a cashless economy so that we could introduce negative rates well below 1% – as they were concerned that Larry Summers' secular stagnation was indeed playing out and we would be stuck with negative rates for a decade in Europe. They felt below (1.5)% depositors would start to hoard notes, leading to yet further complexities for monetary policy." [1] http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-31/bring-on-the-cashless-future http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-31/bring-on-th... [2] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/8ef4dcb0-ca6f-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0,Authorised=false.html?siteedition=intl http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/8ef4dcb0-ca6f-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-08/high-value-banknotes-should-be-binned-to-fight-crime-sands-says http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-08/high-value... [4] https://global.handelsblatt.com/edition/354/ressort/finance/article/the-death-of-cash https://global.handelsblatt.com/edition/354/ressort/finance/... [5] http://www.ibtimes.com/norways-biggest-bank-calls-country-stop-using-cash-2276140 http://www.ibtimes.com/norways-biggest-bank-calls-country-st... [6] http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/bargeld-peter-bofinger-will-muenzen-und-scheine-abschaffen-a-1033905.html http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/bargeld-peter-bofi... [7] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-10/citi-economist-says-it-might-be-time-to-abolish-cash http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-10/citi-econo... [8] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/bank-of-england/11874061/Negative-interest-rates-could-be-necessary-to-protect-UK-economy-says-Bank-of-England-chief-economist.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/bank-of-england/11874061/... [9] https://imgur.com/qnEwiha https://imgur.com/qnEwiha