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25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society
- Hates_ 8y agoThis goes alongside the campaign on protecting cash as a payment option: https://campaigns.which.co.uk/freedom-to-pay/ https://campaigns.which.co.uk/freedom-to-pay/
- matco11 8y agoIt seems to me that a cashless society can have many advantages - when everything works well. Yet, cashless societies would be pretty disastrous in case of natural disasters, acts of war, acts of terrorist, industrial accidents, and any other circumstances that would take out electricity and/or telecommunications. To me that seems a good reason to kill the case for going cashless nationwide.
- neilwilson 8y agoIf the state doesn’t issue cash then other items will become cash - as it did in Somalia.
- cascom 8y agoThe implications of a cashless society on privacy are terrifying
- awakeasleep 8y agoThe implications on life for the poor are terrifying! Businesses would love to be able to exclude people too poor to use their services from society- It's a real ugly situation. Like a decentralized apartheid based on financial status. Without the government stepping in and trying to prevent this discrimination, there is no one to stand up for these human being's lives
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago"Businesses would love to be able to exclude people too poor to use their services from society" I'm pretty sure there are large swaths of society that would really hurt even though some would exclude folks. Everything from fast food to grocery stores to cheap clothing outlets.
- IshKebab 8y agoI don't see what any of that has to do with using cash vs using a prepaid debit card. Are you thinking about credit checks to stop poor people getting phone contracts? Because that already happens and cash existing hasn't stopped it.
- Nextgrid 8y ago> Businesses would love to be able to exclude people too poor to use their services from society How would that work, and what's the incentive for it? People who can't afford a business' service are already excluded from it by definition, regardless of payment method. For those who can afford it, what's the incentive for the business to turn them away and not profit off them?
- _red 8y agoThe monetary implications are even scarier. The real reason they are pushing for "cashless society" is so they can impose negative interest rates. Since you won't have the option to withdraw your funds into cashier, you bank balance will be debited monthly as a privilege for giving the bank money. Its their next hairbrained scheme to try and shore up their ponzi-scheme economy.
- theamk 8y agoI don't see how this will work, unless every country does this, or your currency becomes non-convertible. And even then, you would still be able to buy stocks, expensive jewelry, gold, houses and so on.
- _red 8y ago>I don't see how this will work, unless every country does this, or your currency becomes non-convertible. You say this as if tax fraud is a consequence free activity. >And even then, you would still be able to buy stocks, expensive jewelry, gold, houses and so on Sure, but everyone will do that, so those asset prices will surge making it a poor investment
- repolfx 8y agoAnd even then, you would still be able to buy stocks, expensive jewelry, gold, houses and so on. Yes, that's the idea! The point of negative interest rates is to force people to buy things, thus jacking economic growth like caffeine to a coffee addict. So this is hardly any solution.
- mistrial9 8y agotracking the sources of income for an individual, without exception, is also part of this story
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoIf 25 million are dependent on cash then we won’t be going cashless any time soon.
- sbacic 8y agoI've recently visited London for the first time. What really stunned me was the huge number of homeless people. They were practically everywhere. And they all relied on cash donations. I wonder what will happen to these people as society becomes more and more cashless? What effect will it have on crime?
- Symbiote 8y agoI lived in London since I was a teenager, but moved out in 2015. When I next visited it in 2017, I thought there were a lot of homeless people. It was a huge increase, and the composition was changed -- more British accents asking for change, more people in "nice" areas (like near the theatres) and far more rough sleepers. There were even tents on streets in central London, which I'd not seen previously. A friend a decade older than me said it was the usual effect of Conservative government policy, but I was too young to have noticed the previous implementation. I was 11 when the Conservatives lost power in 1997, and they only fully regained it in 2015.
- throwaway8864e 8y agoIn a China, beggars will have a QR code that you can use to give them some money.
- mcguire 8y agoHow do we get a piece of that action? :-)
- m-i-l 8y agoIt does seem to have got a lot more evident in recent years. Not really solving the underlying issues leading to there being so many in the first place, but some homeless do accept contactless donations[0] and there is a city-wide contactless donation scheme[1]. [0] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/homeless-people-wearing-barcodes-to-accept-online-payments-a3908101.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/homeless-people-wearing-b... [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46372244 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46372244 and https://www.taplondon.org https://www.taplondon.org
- mymythisisthis 8y agoYou need to keep things off the books sometimes. Try saving up for a significant other's gift, if you can't keep a few things hidden.
- verbify 8y agoDo you not have a personal bank account that your significant other doesn't audit?
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoWhile this is common where I live now (Norway), it is not common in the states. Married couples (or just couples) often have a joint account. It was more difficult to transfer money between two people's accounts as well, though there is a chance this has changed recently.
- 2038AD 8y agoFWIW In the US something called Zelle launched a couple of years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)
- mcguire 8y agoPreviously, it was free and easy to transfer money between accounts at the same institution (BoA, if it matters) (modulo the $1000/day limit). Post Zelle? I dunno. The last time I just wrote a check.
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoThat's not good enough, though. I shouldn't have to have the same bank as my spouse. NOt all banks offer both partners value, nor should either give up long-standing accounts for this. I don't mind a small fee, but it can't make think twice sending rent money or food money to the spouse or him doing the same to me. A direct transfer from online banking might take overnight or over the weekend, but there is an app that lets folks pay each other that is low-cost and speedy (or pay for a soda from a machine).
- esotericn 8y agoBritain is not Britain in this regard. London has a ton of places that don't accept cash already. Go to smaller towns in the North and you'll hit minimum charges to use a card or broken machines.
- IshKebab 8y agoAdmittedly I've not lived in London for 5 years or so, but I never went to single place that wouldn't accept cash. Name one.
- mrec 8y agoI suppose parts of TfL might be an example - you can't pay cash on a bus. Other than than, I haven't encountered one either, though I'm worried that they're getting closer. Probably past time to be thinking about an escape plan anyway.
- benjiweber 8y agoIt's increasingly common in e.g. coffee shops/stands who don't want to have to deal with cash. Urban Baristas by Waterloo for example. Even in small supermarkets you'll have to queue for a smaller number of automated checkouts that can do cash, rather than the big row of card-only checkouts.
- eertami 8y agoEasily, I haven't lived in London in a while but I can name three: Japanese Canteen, Browns, Shrimpy's.
- dazc 8y agoI can't think of anywhere in 'the North' where this is anything other than a random event. Ironically, in 'the South' I believe a lot of card machines in cabs have a habit of being broken unless you're adamant that you don't have cash on you?
- onion2k 8y agoI live in Newcastle, and this isn't the case anywhere around the North East.
- purple-again 8y agoThis reads very strongly like someone made a conclusion and then looked for every detail they could they thought might support that theory, some much weaker than others. These types of articles are only useful if your looking for a starting point to get a conversation going on a topic. They are not good for supporting your conclusion one way or the other once you have analyzed the topic.
- jstanley 8y agoOne of the problems with a cashless society is that the banks aren't required to give you a bank account. If none of the banks will give you a bank account, and there's no such thing as cash... then you're just not allowed to have money. That shouldn't be a position that it is possible to get into.
- JimDabell 8y ago> One of the problems with a cashless society is that the banks aren't required to give you a bank account. In the UK, the nine largest banks are legally required to offer basic bank accounts specifically to cater to people who cannot otherwise get a bank account.
- pjc50 8y agoHowever, this is more complicated if you're not a UK national, and if the Home Office decides you're an illegal immigrant (a process with a deliberate high false positive rate) it can get closed. https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/blog/6538/Student-banking-Do-you-really-need-a-UK-bank-account-Is-opening-one-difficult https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/blog/6538/Student-banking-Do-you-r... gives a decent overview of the process. It also mentions the unofficial national ID of the UK, household utility bills.
- frosted-flakes 8y agoI take that to mean that the UK is not switching to e-billing for utilities any time soon.
- pjc50 8y agoOh, it mostly already has. The punchline is whether a printout of a PDF of something that never had a print original counts as an "original" for ID purposes in a completely adhoc adversarial system. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/270197/sup-docs-settlement.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- iamgopal 8y agoHow we/society/constitution stopping government from just create arbitrary number on some server to create money out of the blue ?
- firmgently 8y agoBanks do it under fractional reserve banking. "Lord Adair Turner, formerly the UK's chief financial regulator, said "Banks do not, as too many textbooks still suggest, take deposits of existing money from savers and lend it out to borrowers: they create credit and money ex nihilo* – extending a loan to the borrower and simultaneously crediting the borrower’s money account"." [0] * hilarious use of Latin to make 'out of nothing' sound authoritative [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking
- mathieuh 8y agoGovernments already do this, it's called quantitative easing
- Retra 8y agoMoney just isn't as important as what real humans are doing day to day. So governments have no trouble fudging the numbers if it keeps people doing what they want them to. That's not an unreasonable thing to do.
- sametmax 8y agoAnother problem is that no society is perfect. And even if it were, it won't stay that way. There is a need for a small grey area in any system to stay sane, where people can workaround the limitations of said system. Yes, it will be abused, and also used for nefarious purposes. But it's better than the alternative. You need people to sometimes be able to do things the state doesn't approve. You need children to be able to mess around without parent knowing. You need to be able to go to a gay bar without living a trace. You need to be able to give cash to a homeless without him being part of the system. Also if you make it very hard to try new things that are illegal or immoral now, your society will get stuck and lose a lot of opportunities to evolve. Yes, it would be better to change the system to make it better first. But it's a slow and unreliable process, especially if you can't prove that your way is ok. So having little pocket of experimentation is important, and cash allows that.
- userbinator 8y agoThere is a need for a small grey area in any system to stay sane, where people can workaround the limitations of said system. There is a similar analogy to what is happening in the computing world, and I've heard it called "the insecurity that gives us freedom." I agree.
- galfarragem 8y agoGreat comment. Came here (to try) to say exactly this.
- toby 8y ago
- 908087 8y agoA cashless society would be a wet dream come true for intelligence agencies, Facebook/Google and other mass surveillance proponents or beneficiaries.
- timthorn 8y agoThe Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge is the first place I've come across that is cashless. It struck me that for a Foundation that is trying to promote computing to children, they're exactly one of the main demographics that won't have access to cashless payments. https://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-store/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-store/ (Digressing, but I was also saddened that their tills are tablet EPOS systems and not home-brew with a Pi at their heart)
- crazygringo 8y agoI would love to see a cashless society because carrying around dirty bills and heavy coins is just a nuisance, and adds real overhead for stores as well... ...BUT, for privacy and the unbanked, I suspect this necessarily needs to go along with credit-card-compatible "cash cards" that would have to be: 1) Anonymous (e.g. buy a card for $1 from any drugstore, swap them with friends, buy in bulk and give away, whatever -- don't need to show an ID) 2) Secure and robust (value stored on-card without the ability for the government to deactivate etc., or for transactions to be cancelled after-the-fact) 3) All ATM's and banks required by law to support transferring any reasonable value (e.g. <$10K) from one card to another anonymously (so if I need to pay you, the two of us can walk into any bank). Ideally be able to do this at any convenience store, etc. For whatever reason, I rarely see the idea of anonymous cash cards discussed in these types of conversations.
- joncp 8y ago> For whatever reason, I rarely see the idea of anonymous cash cards discussed in these types of conversations. Because it's really really hard to prevent forgery. Maybe impossible.
- Nextgrid 8y agoIt's impossible to prevent forgery just like physical cash, but it's definitely a lot harder to crack a properly designed cryptosystem than make a counterfeit note.
- def_true_false 8y agoAnonymous prepaid cards are a thing, very useful for e.g. people with debt problems.
- hakfoo 8y agoA prepaid card isn't "self-hosted". They're just front end for a bank account that can be closed or restricted by external forces. The right people in law enforcement could probably make a few calls and shut down an arbitrary prepaid card (or group of them). There's also a strong paper trail that can be used for that-- they could reasonably say "any card that was used at this suspicious merchant should be shut down". They can't demonetize a few random $100 notes with anywhere near the same degree of ease or specificity. Nor does the logging infrastructure exist to find every note which touched a suspicious individual.
- codedokode 8y agoBefore talking about cashless society they should allow anonymous bank cards and anonymous cryptocurrencies. Otherwise it is an Orwellian surveillance state. The government doesn't want better and convenient payment system, they just want to be able to see all transactions between citizens and to be able arrest their money. Today you agree to the cashless society, tomorrow you are assigned a social rating.
- sandov 8y agoGiven the current technological landscape, we are not ready for a cashless society. People don't have the knowledge nor the equipment required to make it a good system. Avoiding this cashless thing seems like the correct move, until we have good social infrastructure (in my opinion, not likely to happen before 2060). We need what Richard Stallman calls digital extraction: >Projects with the goal of digital inclusion are making a big assumption. They are assuming that participating in a digital society is good, but that's not necessarily true. Being in a digital society can be good or bad, depending on whether that digital society is just or unjust. There are many ways in which our freedom is being attacked by digital technology. Digital technology can make things worse, and it will, unless we fight to prevent it. >Therefore, if we have an unjust digital society, we should cancel these projects for digital inclusion and launch projects for digital extraction. We have to extract people from digital society if it doesn't respect their freedom, or we have to make it respect their freedom. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-digital-society.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-digital-society.en.html
- 2038AD 8y agoUnless there were a state (consumer) bank, the implication of a cashless society is that it ought to be a illegal for people not to use private banks. In my mind this effectively make banks an extension of the state apparatus without the sort of accountability that would be expected.
- DeonPenny 8y agoCashless society shouldn't be a thing in a democracy. It requires too many hurdles and money. It's inherently prejudiced to many poor people.