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Economists would surely love the anonymised spending data, were it to be made available. Though it would have to be heavily aggregated to avoid any individuals

Economists would surely love the anonymised spending data, were it to be made available. Though it would have to be heavily aggregated to avoid any individuals being identifiable by their spending times and locations. Retailers would presumably save by not having to pay fees to Visa, MasterCard, Stripe, etc. For consumers, I assume that at first it will be used by early adopters just for the novelty value. Maybe eventually there will be some small monetary incentive to use it instead of visa. Conspiracy theorists will say that they're going to ban cash and force people to use it. Conspiracy theorists are wrong.

heartbeats 4y ago
> Economists would surely love the anonymised spending data, were it to be made available. They could get this from banks already. > Retailers would presumably save by not having to pay fees to Visa, MasterCard, Stripe, etc. These are already low in Europe due to regulation.
- redeyedtreefrog 4y ago
  > They could get this from banks already. No they can't. > These are already low in Europe due to regulation. For sure, it's not going to save vast amounts of money. The original comment said "I already have a digital pound in my bank account". I am merely pointing out that though it may seem entirely frictionless and free to spend online already, there are costs involved.
  - heartbeats 4y ago
    > No they can't. What do you mean "can't"? My bank certainly has the information, since I can see it online if I log in. Of course they would have to change the law, but this also goes for the digital pound.