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Hey now... Just because a payment is cashless doesn't mean you can't haggle the price down. I've been in plenty of shops where you bring the item to the count

Hey now... Just because a payment is cashless doesn't mean you can't haggle the price down. I've been in plenty of shops where you bring the item to the counter and the cashier enters the price directly into the register. No bar code necessary! Even if you use a barcode there's no reason why the price can't be entered in directly or modified at the behest of the cashier. In the West we just don't trust our cashiers enough to do that sort of thing so we lock out that power ("Manager assistance needed at isle four!"). What the world needs right now is cashless payments that don't have absurd (>0.1%) transaction fees. I used to work at First Data (largest credit card processor) and you know how much it costs them to execute a credit card transaction? NOTHING. It's literally nothing. It's not even a factor of, "we have this many servers in this many data centers and here's how much the electricity costs, divided by the total number of transactions in a given day." Why? Because every customer that uses First Data still pays a monthly fee that more than makes up for the cost of all the employees, data centers, software, etc etc. If all First Data ever collected was that monthly fee they'd still be profitable (assuming all they did was handle credit card transactions).

tazjin 6y ago
There's still more to this than just having payment infrastructure. People need to have cards, the cards need to have money on them - both of these are already assumptions that aren't guaranteed to hold for a lot of people.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Moving to cellphone payments is actually easier than having cards though.
  - tazjin 6y ago
    Cell networks are only semi-reliable here, a significant portion of people don't use smart phones (or really care about their phones), and that also needs to be linked to some electronic "value store". Sure, it's possible to overcome all of these things in theory - but at what benefit to the population? Cashless payments are not a goal in and of themselves.
    - subsaharancoder 6y ago
      You don't need a smartphone to enable cellphone financial transactions, check out Kenya's Safaricom Mpesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa which is SIM card based, doesn't use any data, has the option of using USSD or Mobile App. It's already available in Egypt.
      - warkdarrior 6y ago
        What do University of South Sudan denars have to do with Kenya?
        subsaharancoder 6y ago
        Can't tell if you're being serious or just trolling, but I'll bite so here you go USSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Service_Data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Ser...
      - xeromal 6y ago
        You missed his last point though. Cashless payments are not a goal in and of themselves. What benefit do these people gain?
        Aperocky 6y ago
        It's more safe and more convenient?
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      Surely a newly built government seat dream city will come with mobile phone coverage.
maya24 6y ago
A majority of credit card fees goes to the issuing bank. Like a huge percentage of it. Visa and credit card processors take a much smaller percentage relative to the banks.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  Yes - the banks then hand a substantial portion of these fees back to the customer via credit card rewards. We have a bizarre system where retailers mark everything up an extra 2%, to give their more well-off customers (that pay with decent credit cards) an effective 2% discount and the ability to dispute charges. I think retailers would love a new system with less transaction fees, but banks definitely would not, and some customers may not either if it means sacrificing their credit card rewards and perks.
  - oliv__ 6y ago
    Come on now, everybody's got a 2% cashback card
    - macromagnon 6y ago
      Some even have 3-4, all maxed out.
gdsdfe 6y ago
I don't think it's about price entry, it's much much more tangible to someone when your 'flashing' cash while haggling than showing them your phone or credit card
haltingproblem 6y ago
In India, UPI payments approaching 100 million a day, are free for sender and receiver. The RBI (Indian Fed) has a subsidiary which operates the switch. The payments are bank-to-bank account and non-recourse so they cannot be pulled back once initiated. There is no credit and fraud component. India is not an exception and most other countries have similar structure. I think WeChat payments have a similar cost structure though I might be wrong. Most payment systems are very low cost (approaching cost of bandwidth). For comparison, FedWire can transmit payments upto 100 million and above for ~$1.20. Below $100 Million it is $0.90 ;) UPI Statistics: https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-statistics https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-statistics FedWire Cost Table: https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/wires-2021.html https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/wires-2021.html
- powerapple 6y ago
  On WeChat, there is a WeChat Wallet, similar to AliPay, you can store cash in it, so there is no need to go through bank for payment since the buyer and seller all have a wallet from the same company.
torgian 6y ago
Something people forget, however, is that cash in hand is better than a piece of plastic. It’s arguably easier to negotiate when you have cash. Also, there are taxes. Easier to dodge taxes with cash transactions than it is with a piece of plastic.

tazjin 6y ago

There's still more to this than just having payment infrastructure. People need to have cards, the cards need to have money on them - both of these are already assumptions that aren't guaranteed to hold for a lot of people.

Aperocky 6y ago
Moving to cellphone payments is actually easier than having cards though.
- tazjin 6y ago
  Cell networks are only semi-reliable here, a significant portion of people don't use smart phones (or really care about their phones), and that also needs to be linked to some electronic "value store". Sure, it's possible to overcome all of these things in theory - but at what benefit to the population? Cashless payments are not a goal in and of themselves.
  - subsaharancoder 6y ago
    You don't need a smartphone to enable cellphone financial transactions, check out Kenya's Safaricom Mpesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa which is SIM card based, doesn't use any data, has the option of using USSD or Mobile App. It's already available in Egypt.
    - warkdarrior 6y ago
      What do University of South Sudan denars have to do with Kenya?
      - subsaharancoder 6y ago
        Can't tell if you're being serious or just trolling, but I'll bite so here you go USSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Service_Data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstructured_Supplementary_Ser...
    - xeromal 6y ago
      You missed his last point though. Cashless payments are not a goal in and of themselves. What benefit do these people gain?
      - Aperocky 6y ago
        It's more safe and more convenient?
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Surely a newly built government seat dream city will come with mobile phone coverage.

maya24 6y ago

A majority of credit card fees goes to the issuing bank. Like a huge percentage of it. Visa and credit card processors take a much smaller percentage relative to the banks.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
Yes - the banks then hand a substantial portion of these fees back to the customer via credit card rewards. We have a bizarre system where retailers mark everything up an extra 2%, to give their more well-off customers (that pay with decent credit cards) an effective 2% discount and the ability to dispute charges. I think retailers would love a new system with less transaction fees, but banks definitely would not, and some customers may not either if it means sacrificing their credit card rewards and perks.
- oliv__ 6y ago
  Come on now, everybody's got a 2% cashback card
  - macromagnon 6y ago
    Some even have 3-4, all maxed out.

gdsdfe 6y ago

I don't think it's about price entry, it's much much more tangible to someone when your 'flashing' cash while haggling than showing them your phone or credit card

haltingproblem 6y ago

In India, UPI payments approaching 100 million a day, are free for sender and receiver. The RBI (Indian Fed) has a subsidiary which operates the switch. The payments are bank-to-bank account and non-recourse so they cannot be pulled back once initiated. There is no credit and fraud component. India is not an exception and most other countries have similar structure. I think WeChat payments have a similar cost structure though I might be wrong. Most payment systems are very low cost (approaching cost of bandwidth). For comparison, FedWire can transmit payments upto 100 million and above for ~$1.20. Below $100 Million it is $0.90 ;) UPI Statistics: https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-statistics https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-statistics FedWire Cost Table: https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/wires-2021.html https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/wires-2021.html

powerapple 6y ago
On WeChat, there is a WeChat Wallet, similar to AliPay, you can store cash in it, so there is no need to go through bank for payment since the buyer and seller all have a wallet from the same company.

torgian 6y ago

Something people forget, however, is that cash in hand is better than a piece of plastic. It’s arguably easier to negotiate when you have cash. Also, there are taxes. Easier to dodge taxes with cash transactions than it is with a piece of plastic.