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With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the

With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. I understand I need to become more accustomed to the culture that I immigrate too, but that does not mean that there are not more efficient solutions compared to "the way its always been". As for the card reader not working, this is usually only a problem with older machines or places without a strong internet connection.

StavrosK 9y ago
> I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. You have to wait for the transaction to verify. That usually takes more than three seconds (at least here), which is roughly the amount of time it takes to get change.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I don't think it's a good reason to push for cashless, but three seconds on average for both buyers and sellers? Only if Swedes are much faster than citizens across the rest of Europe. Giving the money, inputting the amount into the POS so it can open the register, then choosing the bills and coins - 3s seconds is about the best case scenario, in my experience.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well. Sellers here (Greece) are so used to this (they do it thousands of times a day) that it takes them almost no time to give change back. It helps that change is always segregated into proper trays/slots. Even with contactless, I always feel kind of bad to be paying by card at the super market because I'm slowing the queue down. If the amount goes over 20 euros or so and I have to enter my PIN, it's even slower. It's not even a contest compared to cash.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well Where are you buying that has payment queues but doesn't scan the products? I only see people inputting the amount manually in restaurants/bars.
      - StavrosK 9y ago
        Where are you buying that you have to enter the amount into the POS to open the drawer but not to start the card transaction? You can't consider the time it takes to enter the amount only in the case that suits you. If you have to enter the amount for cash, you have to enter it for the card as well.
        icebraining 9y ago
        You have to enter the amount the person is actually delivering... If the total is 18.45€, I'll probably be paying with a 20€, which the cashier has to input. Now that I think of it, I guess not all POSs require that (the cashier does the calculation for the change in their head), but in my experience they aren't common.
        StavrosK 9y ago
        Oh, what people do over here is "count up" to the amount. So if you give them 20€ for 18.45€, they go "5 cents to 18.50, 50 to 19, 1 euro and that's 20, here you go". That's a pretty fast method.
        Rondom 9y ago
        Furthermore, a good cashier will already pick 1,55€ while the customer is paying and put it back is the customer is paying with a more fitting amount.
    - aianus 9y ago
      It's over $100 or $150 here in Canada here before you have to use the PIN. Basically never have to use the PIN in day-to-day purchases. But yes, when the PIN comes into play it's slower than cash.
Karlozkiller 9y ago
And the inevitable rise in wireless card skimming that would ensue? OK maybe not inevitable but it's made a lot easier with wireless cards etc. And I do expect 'thugs' to catch on. Plus, you can only do that on lower sums. If I pay a higher sum than allowed for wireless pay where I live (Sweden) I'd still need chip and pin, and often in restaurants I am told to enter the total sum plus whatever tip I want to give, then confirm, then enter pin. So I'd say cash can be quicker in some cases, slower in other, but my main concern is in the area of privacy and security both of my cash, and my ability to pay in force majura-cases.
baud147258 9y ago
I'm always taking lunch with a handfull of other devs from where I'm working. All the other pay cash, I'm always paying with a contactless card and I'm always taking more time, even when I don't have to enter the PIN.
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. Have you seen the automated checkouts a lot of stores are installing? There is no cashier. You scan your items and insert bills in the slot. The change is calculated by a computer and returned immediately.
- notahacker 9y ago
  This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor How? The machines will literally take an entire stack of bills at once, read them and make change in the same time it takes to verify an electronic transaction. You would need a stopwatch with sub-second precision to even tell the difference. Which one is faster is down more to the specific model of payment processing machine than the payment method. And even if the card was theoretically faster, we're no longer talking about waiting for some high school kid to fumble around for 30 seconds. A difference of 300 milliseconds one way or the other is just pedantry.
    - tigershark 9y ago
      It’s at least a 30 seconds difference. You need to read the amount, extract your wallet, check if you have the exact amount of money to avoid filling your wallet with useless coins, 90% of the time you realise that you don’t have it and you start fumbling between your notes to find the correct amount that can give you a reasonable change. At that point you can start to have fun fighting with the machine that won’t accept some of your notes because are too old/crumpled. Even in the unlikely case that it accepts all your notes now you still need to wait for the change and retrieve all of it, with some coin that will invariably be stuck somewhere. Or instead of paying with your sweat and your blood using cash you can simply put your hand in your pocket, retrieve the phone and tap it on the sensor.
SllX 9y ago
A good cashier can process cash sometimes quicker than even the fastest card readers I've seen, and not all card readers are nearly that fast. A lot of them are slow, painfully so. If you have to sign, that's also slow, another step in the transaction. What it works out to be is that sometimes it's better to use card and sometimes it is better to use cash if speed is a factor. Someone that takes too long because they are fumbling for cash are just as likely to be the type of person that would have to fumble around for their card or have other issues operating the terminal. Cash is quick and painless with only the most minimal amount of mental arithmetic necessary to give someone their change, not that your typical register won't spit it back out at you anyway. If it is a sit down restaurant with table service though, there's no real positives or negatives to using either besides whatever is most convenient for you. So all in all, all I see in any push to go cashless is the illusion of progress. It's all theater and it is strictly speaking, completely unnecessary to go cashless with considerable downsides if society is forced to.

StavrosK 9y ago

> I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. You have to wait for the transaction to verify. That usually takes more than three seconds (at least here), which is roughly the amount of time it takes to get change.

icebraining 9y ago
I don't think it's a good reason to push for cashless, but three seconds on average for both buyers and sellers? Only if Swedes are much faster than citizens across the rest of Europe. Giving the money, inputting the amount into the POS so it can open the register, then choosing the bills and coins - 3s seconds is about the best case scenario, in my experience.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well. Sellers here (Greece) are so used to this (they do it thousands of times a day) that it takes them almost no time to give change back. It helps that change is always segregated into proper trays/slots. Even with contactless, I always feel kind of bad to be paying by card at the super market because I'm slowing the queue down. If the amount goes over 20 euros or so and I have to enter my PIN, it's even slower. It's not even a contest compared to cash.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well Where are you buying that has payment queues but doesn't scan the products? I only see people inputting the amount manually in restaurants/bars.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      Where are you buying that you have to enter the amount into the POS to open the drawer but not to start the card transaction? You can't consider the time it takes to enter the amount only in the case that suits you. If you have to enter the amount for cash, you have to enter it for the card as well.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        You have to enter the amount the person is actually delivering... If the total is 18.45€, I'll probably be paying with a 20€, which the cashier has to input. Now that I think of it, I guess not all POSs require that (the cashier does the calculation for the change in their head), but in my experience they aren't common.
        StavrosK 9y ago
        Oh, what people do over here is "count up" to the amount. So if you give them 20€ for 18.45€, they go "5 cents to 18.50, 50 to 19, 1 euro and that's 20, here you go". That's a pretty fast method.
        Rondom 9y ago
        Furthermore, a good cashier will already pick 1,55€ while the customer is paying and put it back is the customer is paying with a more fitting amount.
  - aianus 9y ago
    It's over $100 or $150 here in Canada here before you have to use the PIN. Basically never have to use the PIN in day-to-day purchases. But yes, when the PIN comes into play it's slower than cash.

Karlozkiller 9y ago

And the inevitable rise in wireless card skimming that would ensue? OK maybe not inevitable but it's made a lot easier with wireless cards etc. And I do expect 'thugs' to catch on. Plus, you can only do that on lower sums. If I pay a higher sum than allowed for wireless pay where I live (Sweden) I'd still need chip and pin, and often in restaurants I am told to enter the total sum plus whatever tip I want to give, then confirm, then enter pin. So I'd say cash can be quicker in some cases, slower in other, but my main concern is in the area of privacy and security both of my cash, and my ability to pay in force majura-cases.

baud147258 9y ago

I'm always taking lunch with a handfull of other devs from where I'm working. All the other pay cash, I'm always paying with a contactless card and I'm always taking more time, even when I don't have to enter the PIN.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. Have you seen the automated checkouts a lot of stores are installing? There is no cashier. You scan your items and insert bills in the slot. The change is calculated by a computer and returned immediately.

notahacker 9y ago
This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor How? The machines will literally take an entire stack of bills at once, read them and make change in the same time it takes to verify an electronic transaction. You would need a stopwatch with sub-second precision to even tell the difference. Which one is faster is down more to the specific model of payment processing machine than the payment method. And even if the card was theoretically faster, we're no longer talking about waiting for some high school kid to fumble around for 30 seconds. A difference of 300 milliseconds one way or the other is just pedantry.
  - tigershark 9y ago
    It’s at least a 30 seconds difference. You need to read the amount, extract your wallet, check if you have the exact amount of money to avoid filling your wallet with useless coins, 90% of the time you realise that you don’t have it and you start fumbling between your notes to find the correct amount that can give you a reasonable change. At that point you can start to have fun fighting with the machine that won’t accept some of your notes because are too old/crumpled. Even in the unlikely case that it accepts all your notes now you still need to wait for the change and retrieve all of it, with some coin that will invariably be stuck somewhere. Or instead of paying with your sweat and your blood using cash you can simply put your hand in your pocket, retrieve the phone and tap it on the sensor.

SllX 9y ago

A good cashier can process cash sometimes quicker than even the fastest card readers I've seen, and not all card readers are nearly that fast. A lot of them are slow, painfully so. If you have to sign, that's also slow, another step in the transaction. What it works out to be is that sometimes it's better to use card and sometimes it is better to use cash if speed is a factor. Someone that takes too long because they are fumbling for cash are just as likely to be the type of person that would have to fumble around for their card or have other issues operating the terminal. Cash is quick and painless with only the most minimal amount of mental arithmetic necessary to give someone their change, not that your typical register won't spit it back out at you anyway. If it is a sit down restaurant with table service though, there's no real positives or negatives to using either besides whatever is most convenient for you. So all in all, all I see in any push to go cashless is the illusion of progress. It's all theater and it is strictly speaking, completely unnecessary to go cashless with considerable downsides if society is forced to.