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Here in Switzerland: — The largest cash note is 1000 Fr. (slightly more than $1000). It is readily accepted everywhere and I can pay for coffee with it and get

Here in Switzerland: — The largest cash note is 1000 Fr. (slightly more than $1000). It is readily accepted everywhere and I can pay for coffee with it and get change. (The coffee will be around $4, or $7 for vanilla latte in Starbucks). — My ATM daily cash withdrawal limit is 75000 Fr. (not a typo). I dream of hitting it once, but I'm not that rich. — I can go to the nearest bank and buy a physical gold bar, from 1g to 12 kg, for cash, no questions asked, no papers needed. And sell it later at the same place, with only a nominal fee taken (if still in original package). And I like it this way. When I travel in any other country, it looks strange to me when even a 100€ bill is frowned upon and probably won't be accepted.

askyourmother 11y ago
I agree with you 200% here, but the HN crowd don't seem to be able to even conceive that once cash is gone, it only takes a glitch, a bug (in software? Surely not!), or a malicious action by bank or state, and then you are left in a rather desperate state. Today the bank can, and had recently, make mistakes, but o can still buy food on the way home thanks to cash. Life can go on, even when "computer says no".
- atemerev 11y ago
  Not even malicious. Just a mistake or law misinterpretation. Banking software systems may seem relatively logical (spoiler: they are very NOT), but legal structure around payments, compliance, taxes, insurance etc. is a mess. Tax returns are commonplace (this means that mistakes in taxation happens all the time). Currently, if there a mistake, you can challenge it, then pay. What governments want is taking money first, then you can try to challenge it. I'd say no thanks.
- eveningcoffee 11y ago
  Another thing people overlook is that when all peoples money is in the bank, then banks are free to raise all the "fees" they need to "handle" your money. Also if all peoples money is in the bank, then government can choose what ever tax rate they please and just take the money by simple transaction.
- ross-life 11y ago
  Some great examples of this are the several occasions UK banks have screwed up and left people without access over weekends or just after payday [1] [1] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/britains-worst-bank-history-natwest-rbs-outages-technical-meltdowns-1506660 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/britains-worst-bank-history-natwest...
- mstade 11y ago
  Swede here – it's national news whenever any of the payment systems go down. In particular the big bank initiative Swish, which seemingly tend to not cope well with high density situations such as concerts and festivals, garners criticism whenever it goes down since it's advertised as "the alternative to cash." What scares me the most about it is that the system is designed to have you give up control, under the guise of "making your life easier." Tin-foil hat warning perhaps, but fact of the matter is that these institutions (in which I include the government) have shown over and over again why they can't be trusted, not least because when they "make a mistake" it's always the rest of us that end up in the shit for it. You're asked to just deal with it, with little recourse. I'm all for abandoning physical cash, but we're nowhere near having solved all of the questions, and the current alternatives available in Sweden are demonstrably worse than cash – despite the latter's shortcomings.
- jackhack 11y ago
  Beyond mistakes - consider political persecution. Have an unpopular opinion about the current governing political party? One click later a bank account might experience a "technical difficulty." Named to an unofficial secret list of troublemakers (e.g. "no fly list") by a faceless bureaucrat? ditto. This applies not only to individuals but also to corporations. The ability to freeze (or "disappear") a corporation's finances with a keystroke could be a powerful political weapon. From Apple to the EFF to Amnesty International... and the faces that represent them, this could open an entirely new political warfront.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    Exactly, and already happening in China. Bank secrecy was here for a reason.
gedrap 11y ago
>>> My ATM daily cash withdrawal limit is 75000 Fr. (not a typo). I dream of hitting it once, but I'm not that rich. Isn't it a bad idea? Default limits at my bank are around 1000Eur in withdrawals a day but I have reduced my limits to what I might typically need (around 100Eur), just in case I get my card skimmed/stolen to limit the damage.
- atemerev 11y ago
  My personal limits are much lower. 75000 Fr. is as far as I can raise it without hitting an ATM limit. Still, it is quite high amount compared to other European countries, around 4000 Fr. Skimming doesn't work with my card (set to chip-only operation), PIN code is 6 digits, auto-blocking after 3 attempts, and not written anywhere. I travel a lot, and the ability to get instant cash saved me more than once.
  - jon-wood 11y ago
    Do foreign ATMs handle your 6 digit PIN ok? At least here I've not heard of anyone having more than 4 digits.
    - dhimes 11y ago
      I have 6 with Bank of America
  - atemerev 11y ago
    @jon-wood — yes, in most countries, even in the US (though I have found a few incompatible ATMs in Boston). The only country where all ATMs were hard-wired to accept 4-digit pins was Israel. But I was there 5 years ago, perhaps they upgraded their ATMs since. :)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    American here. I would love for the ability to set my cards to chip-only operation. I've even considered going so far as to use a magstrip writer to remove all data from the magstrip.
wjnc 11y ago
It's a bit snarky, but tax payers around the world are thankful for having to pay additional taxes for your privilige. In the sense that the freedoms you enjoy financially in Switzerland have enabled massive tax-dodging worldwide. Half a million worth of gold, no questions asked? Anti-terrorism-financing acts in Europe start with actions needed by banks and institutions at about 10-20k euro per transaction. Again, I would be among the first to doubt the use of these kinds of acts (does it stop _anything_?). But the tax dodging for one has been a real consequence of Swiss law. It's kind of where the libertarian in me meets the tax payer.
- atemerev 11y ago
  I am sorry, but the modern global tax system is a mess and I don't want to support it in any way. I have to pay quite a lot of taxes and social payments here (contrary to a popular myth, Switzerland is quite tax-heavy for small businesses, and we have obligatory medical insurance, quite expensive), but at least, most of them were voted in directly on referendums, and a lot more were repelled by voters who are also taxpayers. In most other countries, governments are free to issue new tax laws and amend old ones at their wish, without democratic validation. And the only feedback is the promise of candidates to fix things in the next 4 years, which they rarely fulfill.
  - protomyth 11y ago
    > In most other countries, governments are free to issue new tax laws and amend old ones at their wish, without democratic validation. And the only feedback is the promise of candidates to fix things in the next 4 years, which they rarely fulfill. In the US at least, the tax system is the way politicians can reward their contributors in the most straightforward manner. New, arcane deductions directed at individual companies or groups of companies make for a very complicated tax system. Politicians have no incentive to change it, and we have not elected a person who has a philosophical hatred of it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- atemerev 11y ago
mike_hearn 11y ago
Which bank are you with? I'm also in Switzerland but I'm pretty sure my ATM limit is much, much lower than 75k. Actually I managed to max out my debit card daily limit just by buying a new MacBook Pro. The limits aren't there because banks hate cash (much), they're there to stop someone being marched to an ATM at knifepoint and being forced to empty their life savings into someone else's pockets.
- atemerev 11y ago
  UBS. Your bank is probably PostFinance, where they have 1000 Fr. default daily limit (can be risen on request).
  - mike_hearn 11y ago
    Nope, I'm also with UBS. Admittedly, I have never actually attempted to withdraw more than about 1000 CHF from an ATM. I just assumed the limit is the same as the debit card tx limit, which I have definitely hit.
    - atemerev 11y ago
      Mine was 4000 by default. Perhaps they are different for different cards.
- atemerev 11y ago
  (Savings account is normally inaccessible from ATMs — at least my isn't).
sschueller 11y ago
There was a money laundry investigation a while ago because someone walked into their local Post Bank and withdrew 4.6 million Franks in cash (in 4600 Thousand Notes). The employees checked if the man had the amount in his account and paid it out. The bank was found not guilty of any wrong doing. [1] However it turned out the guy was a con man and disappeared. Flags should have been raised because of the large electronic deposit just 2 days before but the employees them selves did not know that. [1] http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtschaft/unternehmen-und-konjunktur/geldwaeschereiurteil-gegen-post-wird-heute-eroeffnet/story/23302082 http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtschaft/unternehmen-und-konju...
- oska 11y ago
  On the subject of money laundering, Joi Ito just recently published an essay linking anti-laundering laws to copyright laws and critical of the usually poor design of both. Abstract: Intentionally or unintentionally, poorly crafted or outdated laws and technical standards threaten to undermine security, privacy and the viability of our most promising new technologies and networks, such as Bitcoin and Blockchain. We should vigilantly be reviewing and revising laws and standards for the public good and working to prevent the creation of fragile and cumbersome systems designed to comply with these poorly crafted or outdated laws. In this post, I discuss the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Anti-Circumvention provision, Digital Rights Management, Anti-Money Laundering Law, Know Your Customer Laws and security backdoors. [1] [1] http://pubpub.ito.com/pub/dmca-drm-aml-kyc-backdoors http://pubpub.ito.com/pub/dmca-drm-aml-kyc-backdoors
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Ugh, it sounds nice but it's just one side of the story. ATM limits are generally not in place because you can't access your money, but to protect the consumer from being forced at gunpoint to withdraw their entire balance to a thief. Through my work I've got eyes on a lot of people's bank accounts and I've seen plenty with balances of tens of thousands of dollars on their checking account. The ability to withdraw it with no oversight or protection with your card means walking around with your card means you're walking around with your entire bank balance in your wallet, ready to be stolen by anyone who forces you to withdraw, or simply reads your code and steals your card or skims your card. Same for companies rejecting bills, sounds ridiculous in a rich low-crime country, but you don't live in the 'real world' that the median citizen of the world does, you live in a tiny little paradise in comparison. In most other places, retailers don't want to hold that kind of cash in stores, it's dangerous to them. The gold is great, although it makes little sense for every bank in the world to hold gold. One or two dealers per city is fine, and guess what, they exist already and they don't have to be a bank. I really do like it, though, would definitely like it but I don't think it makes much business sense. Beyond that, it's reasonably easy to simply get exposure to the gold price as investors. The only reason to buy physical gold then is either because you're pretty paranoid about the 'system' collapsing, which is fine although not my cup of tea. The other is for tax avoidance. Let's just say I don't think it's a coincidence this service is offered in Switzerland, and that this may tell you something about the real use case of this service. It may work in a rich country with a finance industry that brings in big bucks, but Swiss policies simply don't work at scale in other countries, and have indeed cost other countries a lot of money who are in a way subsidising Switzerland. (I know because I've worked in that very industry and I've seen how it works. Although I must note, it's certainly not the only country to do this, and it's all changing for the better pretty quickly). Anyway thanks for sharing your personal experience, I'm sure you know the above and aren't claiming Switzerland is some kind of model for the rest of the world, but that's what it appears to suggest.
- atemerev 11y ago
  What we want from "the system" is protection from seizure. Swiss banks cannot guarantee this protection anymore, because if I am, say, a German citizen they will now happily report my bank accounts to German tax authorities due to recent agreements, and they will seize my money, even if they are mistaken, before court decision, with no presumption of innocence. (Ironically, they are explicitly disallowed by law to do it for Swiss tax authorities). If I have physical gold, it's anonymous, can be stored securely and is not transparent. Still can be seized, but this is much harder and requires actual physical force.

askyourmother 11y ago

I agree with you 200% here, but the HN crowd don't seem to be able to even conceive that once cash is gone, it only takes a glitch, a bug (in software? Surely not!), or a malicious action by bank or state, and then you are left in a rather desperate state. Today the bank can, and had recently, make mistakes, but o can still buy food on the way home thanks to cash. Life can go on, even when "computer says no".

atemerev 11y ago
Not even malicious. Just a mistake or law misinterpretation. Banking software systems may seem relatively logical (spoiler: they are very NOT), but legal structure around payments, compliance, taxes, insurance etc. is a mess. Tax returns are commonplace (this means that mistakes in taxation happens all the time). Currently, if there a mistake, you can challenge it, then pay. What governments want is taking money first, then you can try to challenge it. I'd say no thanks.
eveningcoffee 11y ago
Another thing people overlook is that when all peoples money is in the bank, then banks are free to raise all the "fees" they need to "handle" your money. Also if all peoples money is in the bank, then government can choose what ever tax rate they please and just take the money by simple transaction.
ross-life 11y ago
Some great examples of this are the several occasions UK banks have screwed up and left people without access over weekends or just after payday [1] [1] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/britains-worst-bank-history-natwest-rbs-outages-technical-meltdowns-1506660 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/britains-worst-bank-history-natwest...
mstade 11y ago
Swede here – it's national news whenever any of the payment systems go down. In particular the big bank initiative Swish, which seemingly tend to not cope well with high density situations such as concerts and festivals, garners criticism whenever it goes down since it's advertised as "the alternative to cash." What scares me the most about it is that the system is designed to have you give up control, under the guise of "making your life easier." Tin-foil hat warning perhaps, but fact of the matter is that these institutions (in which I include the government) have shown over and over again why they can't be trusted, not least because when they "make a mistake" it's always the rest of us that end up in the shit for it. You're asked to just deal with it, with little recourse. I'm all for abandoning physical cash, but we're nowhere near having solved all of the questions, and the current alternatives available in Sweden are demonstrably worse than cash – despite the latter's shortcomings.
jackhack 11y ago
Beyond mistakes - consider political persecution. Have an unpopular opinion about the current governing political party? One click later a bank account might experience a "technical difficulty." Named to an unofficial secret list of troublemakers (e.g. "no fly list") by a faceless bureaucrat? ditto. This applies not only to individuals but also to corporations. The ability to freeze (or "disappear") a corporation's finances with a keystroke could be a powerful political weapon. From Apple to the EFF to Amnesty International... and the faces that represent them, this could open an entirely new political warfront.
- atemerev 11y ago
  Exactly, and already happening in China. Bank secrecy was here for a reason.

gedrap 11y ago

>>> My ATM daily cash withdrawal limit is 75000 Fr. (not a typo). I dream of hitting it once, but I'm not that rich. Isn't it a bad idea? Default limits at my bank are around 1000Eur in withdrawals a day but I have reduced my limits to what I might typically need (around 100Eur), just in case I get my card skimmed/stolen to limit the damage.

atemerev 11y ago
My personal limits are much lower. 75000 Fr. is as far as I can raise it without hitting an ATM limit. Still, it is quite high amount compared to other European countries, around 4000 Fr. Skimming doesn't work with my card (set to chip-only operation), PIN code is 6 digits, auto-blocking after 3 attempts, and not written anywhere. I travel a lot, and the ability to get instant cash saved me more than once.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  Do foreign ATMs handle your 6 digit PIN ok? At least here I've not heard of anyone having more than 4 digits.
  - dhimes 11y ago
    I have 6 with Bank of America
- atemerev 11y ago
  @jon-wood — yes, in most countries, even in the US (though I have found a few incompatible ATMs in Boston). The only country where all ATMs were hard-wired to accept 4-digit pins was Israel. But I was there 5 years ago, perhaps they upgraded their ATMs since. :)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  American here. I would love for the ability to set my cards to chip-only operation. I've even considered going so far as to use a magstrip writer to remove all data from the magstrip.

wjnc 11y ago

It's a bit snarky, but tax payers around the world are thankful for having to pay additional taxes for your privilige. In the sense that the freedoms you enjoy financially in Switzerland have enabled massive tax-dodging worldwide. Half a million worth of gold, no questions asked? Anti-terrorism-financing acts in Europe start with actions needed by banks and institutions at about 10-20k euro per transaction. Again, I would be among the first to doubt the use of these kinds of acts (does it stop _anything_?). But the tax dodging for one has been a real consequence of Swiss law. It's kind of where the libertarian in me meets the tax payer.

atemerev 11y ago
I am sorry, but the modern global tax system is a mess and I don't want to support it in any way. I have to pay quite a lot of taxes and social payments here (contrary to a popular myth, Switzerland is quite tax-heavy for small businesses, and we have obligatory medical insurance, quite expensive), but at least, most of them were voted in directly on referendums, and a lot more were repelled by voters who are also taxpayers. In most other countries, governments are free to issue new tax laws and amend old ones at their wish, without democratic validation. And the only feedback is the promise of candidates to fix things in the next 4 years, which they rarely fulfill.
- protomyth 11y ago
  > In most other countries, governments are free to issue new tax laws and amend old ones at their wish, without democratic validation. And the only feedback is the promise of candidates to fix things in the next 4 years, which they rarely fulfill. In the US at least, the tax system is the way politicians can reward their contributors in the most straightforward manner. New, arcane deductions directed at individual companies or groups of companies make for a very complicated tax system. Politicians have no incentive to change it, and we have not elected a person who has a philosophical hatred of it.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
atemerev 11y ago

mike_hearn 11y ago

Which bank are you with? I'm also in Switzerland but I'm pretty sure my ATM limit is much, much lower than 75k. Actually I managed to max out my debit card daily limit just by buying a new MacBook Pro. The limits aren't there because banks hate cash (much), they're there to stop someone being marched to an ATM at knifepoint and being forced to empty their life savings into someone else's pockets.

atemerev 11y ago
UBS. Your bank is probably PostFinance, where they have 1000 Fr. default daily limit (can be risen on request).
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  Nope, I'm also with UBS. Admittedly, I have never actually attempted to withdraw more than about 1000 CHF from an ATM. I just assumed the limit is the same as the debit card tx limit, which I have definitely hit.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    Mine was 4000 by default. Perhaps they are different for different cards.
atemerev 11y ago
(Savings account is normally inaccessible from ATMs — at least my isn't).

sschueller 11y ago

There was a money laundry investigation a while ago because someone walked into their local Post Bank and withdrew 4.6 million Franks in cash (in 4600 Thousand Notes). The employees checked if the man had the amount in his account and paid it out. The bank was found not guilty of any wrong doing. [1] However it turned out the guy was a con man and disappeared. Flags should have been raised because of the large electronic deposit just 2 days before but the employees them selves did not know that. [1] http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtschaft/unternehmen-und-konjunktur/geldwaeschereiurteil-gegen-post-wird-heute-eroeffnet/story/23302082 http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtschaft/unternehmen-und-konju...

oska 11y ago
On the subject of money laundering, Joi Ito just recently published an essay linking anti-laundering laws to copyright laws and critical of the usually poor design of both. Abstract: Intentionally or unintentionally, poorly crafted or outdated laws and technical standards threaten to undermine security, privacy and the viability of our most promising new technologies and networks, such as Bitcoin and Blockchain. We should vigilantly be reviewing and revising laws and standards for the public good and working to prevent the creation of fragile and cumbersome systems designed to comply with these poorly crafted or outdated laws. In this post, I discuss the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Anti-Circumvention provision, Digital Rights Management, Anti-Money Laundering Law, Know Your Customer Laws and security backdoors. [1] [1] http://pubpub.ito.com/pub/dmca-drm-aml-kyc-backdoors http://pubpub.ito.com/pub/dmca-drm-aml-kyc-backdoors

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

Ugh, it sounds nice but it's just one side of the story. ATM limits are generally not in place because you can't access your money, but to protect the consumer from being forced at gunpoint to withdraw their entire balance to a thief. Through my work I've got eyes on a lot of people's bank accounts and I've seen plenty with balances of tens of thousands of dollars on their checking account. The ability to withdraw it with no oversight or protection with your card means walking around with your card means you're walking around with your entire bank balance in your wallet, ready to be stolen by anyone who forces you to withdraw, or simply reads your code and steals your card or skims your card. Same for companies rejecting bills, sounds ridiculous in a rich low-crime country, but you don't live in the 'real world' that the median citizen of the world does, you live in a tiny little paradise in comparison. In most other places, retailers don't want to hold that kind of cash in stores, it's dangerous to them. The gold is great, although it makes little sense for every bank in the world to hold gold. One or two dealers per city is fine, and guess what, they exist already and they don't have to be a bank. I really do like it, though, would definitely like it but I don't think it makes much business sense. Beyond that, it's reasonably easy to simply get exposure to the gold price as investors. The only reason to buy physical gold then is either because you're pretty paranoid about the 'system' collapsing, which is fine although not my cup of tea. The other is for tax avoidance. Let's just say I don't think it's a coincidence this service is offered in Switzerland, and that this may tell you something about the real use case of this service. It may work in a rich country with a finance industry that brings in big bucks, but Swiss policies simply don't work at scale in other countries, and have indeed cost other countries a lot of money who are in a way subsidising Switzerland. (I know because I've worked in that very industry and I've seen how it works. Although I must note, it's certainly not the only country to do this, and it's all changing for the better pretty quickly). Anyway thanks for sharing your personal experience, I'm sure you know the above and aren't claiming Switzerland is some kind of model for the rest of the world, but that's what it appears to suggest.

atemerev 11y ago
What we want from "the system" is protection from seizure. Swiss banks cannot guarantee this protection anymore, because if I am, say, a German citizen they will now happily report my bank accounts to German tax authorities due to recent agreements, and they will seize my money, even if they are mistaken, before court decision, with no presumption of innocence. (Ironically, they are explicitly disallowed by law to do it for Swiss tax authorities). If I have physical gold, it's anonymous, can be stored securely and is not transparent. Still can be seized, but this is much harder and requires actual physical force.