9 ms·

In Sweden, cash is king no more

72 points by mebe 15y ago

RugerRedhawk 15y ago
Not necessarily a good thing. No cash means no privacy.
- gxs 15y ago
  Agree. I never understand these dichotomies people set up. Why can't we just have both? The US system is a good balance, at least at the moment- you have an option to do either, with cards widely accepted except for a few ma and pa bars and restaurants.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
Chrono 15y ago
As a Swede I am used to always being able to pay with my card; Heading to the bar? No need to withdraw cash. Grabbing a taxi home late at night? No need to worry if you have enough cash, they accept cards. To add to this is that electronic transfer of money to both businesses and private citizens is quick and easy. If you transfer within the same bank it is instant and takes up to a day, depending on the hour, to transfer between banks.
- tjoff 15y ago
  As a Swede, I always bring cash. Heading to the bar? Already have cash in the wallet. Grabbing a taxi home late at night? No need to worry that I don't have enough cash on me. Store temporarily only accept cash due to some error? Replace panic with nonexistent queue. Regardless of whether you always pay cash or always pay with a card and regardless of whether you value privacy or not - you should always, in my opnion, have some cash with you. That has served me well and I've never in my life regretted having too much cash on me. The day I get robbed the cash I have on me is the least of my worries, if anything having an empty wallet might be provoking to someone that just tried to rob you (or a lot of money might get him (or her) greedy and ask for more, you never know). Note to self: Get rid of (and remember) the CCV code on the card and destroy the magnet stripe on my card. Anything not working with the chip isn't worth the hassle nor worth the trust of using a card (that might sound strange for some but in Sweden the use of the magnet stripe is quite rare).
  - martinkallstrom 15y ago
    As a swede I never have cash on me anymore. But when I lived in Tokyo, the situation was reversed: low crime levels, high prices and nowhere to use a card, all contributed to me walking around with on average about $500 on any given day. That was a decade ago, though.
  - Chrono 15y ago
    While you have a point about carrying cash I just have an irrational dislike towards change. The damn coins are heavy, close to worthless much of the time and overall annoying. And I have barely ever encountered a situation where the card machine is broken,at least not in recent years but it can of course happen. 'Removing' the CCV and magnetic stripe is actually a good idea - Wouldn't trust most (Swedish) places that don't use the chip to read the card data.
  - mjwalshe 15y ago
    My Uncle who was in the Merchant Marine always used to keep a decoy wallet with expired cards and a tiny amount of cash so that if he got mugged/pick pocketed he would not lose much,
  - lflux 15y ago
    All grocery stores around me use a sealed cash system. I've been more often stuck behind people wanting to pay with cash when the cash scanner breaks down compared to the card machine being down.
  - kristiandupont 15y ago
    Out of your three examples, only the last one is an argument for cash over cards. Is that the reason why you prefer cash? Or is it the privacy thing?
    - tjoff 15y ago
      Cash is faster, I have better control over my money (but that's just because of how I'm handling them, YMMV), and the privacy part doesn't hurt - That's more of a principle than anything else, I really feel that we must have a anonymous way for payments AND that the anonymous method must not in any way be suspected of foul play just for using it. That is the first "danger" that will come, that people get so accustomed to cards that the day someone wants to pay a packet of gum with cash you get suspicious - that is something that I will truly dislike. And given the current development I see no reason as to why that won't be the case in the semi-near future. Also, cash is much safer. That everything that is needed to take money for me is written on a card that I have to pick out for every purchase is beyond lunacy. And people actually have stomach to say that post-it notes with your password is bad (it is, but in perspective)... So part of why I mostly use cash is of principle, cards are just so insecure. It's not that I'm afraid I'll get in trouble but part is principle and the other part is that I have no idea if my "secret" number is revealed to the wrong person. 8 months later I'll potentially be denied a purchase because the card is empty... I do however use my card from time to time, but mostly cash. And so far the benefits of using cash are actually greater than that of a card in my eyes - so even without the benefit of security and privacy I'd still use cash.
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  MM so your the annoying person who isn't organized enough to bring cash and causes long queues at the bar or coffee shop when I am buying my morning coffee and paper at the train station. The more you use your card the more chance of getting skimmed using cash for small purchases is a way of reducing your attack surface.
  - Chrono 15y ago
    You are welcome! :) No really, the card readers are damn quick these days so it hardly takes much longer than paying with cash but I admit that it takes slightly longer. I would argue that most people pay their morning coffee with card in Sweden. I have used my card all over the world, for small and large purchases, and have yet to get it skimmed - lucky I guess. But another aspect of increased card use is that tax fraud becomes harder for the businesses as I believe the logging of card transactions are quite a lot harder to hide from the tax authority so I do see that as a positive thing.
    - mjwalshe 15y ago
      At my medium sized local station around 2k people catch trains within 45 mins every morning so cash is much much faster and allows a greater through put of transactions.
      - justincormack 15y ago
        We all use smart cards and no one pays at point of transport...
  - jrockway 15y ago
    The more you use your card the more chance of getting skimmed using cash for small purchases is a way of reducing your attack surface. I don't get why people care about this. Credit card fraud is the bank's problem, not mine.
    - mjwalshe 15y ago
conradfr 15y ago
"If there were no cash, what would they do?" says Ulvaeus, 66. Well, he's in for a surprise ...
zyfo 15y ago
My 2 cents as a Swede: Lots of small businesses here in Stockholm refuse to accept cards under 50 kr ($8-9) because of the high fees mentioned in the article. Also if you're out at club, you get faster service if you just use cash. At various semi-official student parties "Cash is king!" is often mentioned in the invitation. Not to mention loyalty to small businesses (knowing how much it costs for them), privacy concerns and plain old style / swiftness.
read_wharf 15y ago
"One should be able to send money and donate money to different organizations without being traced every time," he says." That's a tough problem, which the US government will demand of foreign governments and fight tooth and nail at home.
gyardley 15y ago
I would have to trust my government a whole lot more than I do to be comfortable with this - and then trust that my government isn't going to change over the course of my lifetime. Surely Swedes buy drugs and cheat on their taxes, just like the rest of us. Even if you don't - why wouldn't you want to ensure you can quietly conduct an illegal transaction, should a currently unforseen need arise in the future? Getting rid of cash seems awfully shortsighted.
- arketyp 15y ago
  This problem is already (partly) solved by exchange in digital gold currency. Pecunix and e-gold are two such services.
  - pdx 15y ago
    No, they're not.
  - vier 15y ago
    I don't know any drug dealers who take that.
    - joejohnson 15y ago
      I know a few that take bitcoin :)
- 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
  To me this is like the argument that touch screen only phones are less good to keyboard/keypad phones because you lose the tactile feel and cannot text as you drive. I am not going to claim I am completely innocent, but a cashless society has many benefits. The fact that it may impede the ability of others to cheat on their taxes or purchase contraband is a poor excuse to remain on cash. Why does the majority of the population have to suffer?
rokhayakebe 15y ago
I wonder what that would do to the illegal drug industry.
- jrockway 15y ago
  A lot of PayPal transactions whose notes field say "ebay: vintage photograph" or something else that can be legitimately expensive and small.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Bitcoin? If there's a need for something, people will find ways to circumvent laws and tools against it. In a completely cash-less world say 100 years from now, the Bitcoin we have now will seem like version 0.01 of the anonymous digital money we'd have then.
- ams6110 15y ago
  Barter, or elaborate e-laundering of transactions. Where there's a market there will be a way. There was a story recently about the growing problem of theft of Tide laundry detergent, people paying drug dealers with stolen Tide detergent.
  - WiseWeasel 15y ago
    Did the drug dealer happen to be a laundry detergent distributor?
mattmiller 15y ago
Do the Visas and Mastercards of Sweden still get their cut of every transaction? What a great way for these companies to solidify their corner of the market. Here is what I want: a way to do electronic transactions anonymously and cheaper that the current options. How do you do this while combating fraud?
- dcosson 15y ago
  That's kind of the whole point of Bitcoin. Free to use, not tied to any government or organization, and it can be completely anonymous. With that comes the downsides that you have to be technical and know what you're doing to use it, as does the person you're buying from, and bitcoins are basically as easy to steal as cash.
  - mindslight 15y ago
    What is the 'anonymity' property of bitcoin I keep hearing about? Has there been a fundamental overhaul of the protocol since Satoshi's initial paper?
    - dfc 15y ago
      The parent means pseudonymous. Bitcoin is certainly not anonymous.
      - tjoff 15y ago
        And with the transaction history included, and most transactions, by necessity, tell something about you (at least the merchant probably needs to know where to send your item or whatever) it seems to me that it would be utterly trivial to get a hold of the real identity of the vast majority of the users after even his/hers first transactions. And this is valuable information and it will, as today, be bought and sold freely - maintaining a database of who is who seems like childs play. Not only that, but also who bought what (or at least from who), making it the least anonymous way to make a purchase imaginable (almost as bad as saying what you bought on twitter). For anyone hoping of using bitcoins for their everyday transactions, would that be any more anonymous than a credit card is today? Or even worse, it might give you the sense that you are anonymous when you are not.
paulhauggis 15y ago
The culture is based on government rule and control+high taxes, this is the next logical step and it doesn't surprise me.
Vitaly 15y ago
I expirienced the exact opposite in Maebashi Japan circa 2003. We had to go to Tokyo to find a place to get some cash out of our foreign issued credit cards, and even the local ones were not universally accepted. For such a high-tech nation as Japan I was completely shoked.
dfc 15y ago
Why can't a thief force you to transfer money electronically just like the money was transfered for the church donation? (I am not saying that the church donation was coerced.)
- dfc 15y ago
  This was a legitimate question. I'm sorry that someone took it otherwise. Whether going cashless will dramtically reduce the incentives for mugging people is an interesting question.
- icebraining 15y ago
  Presumably because the transaction would be logged and he would get immediately caught.
  - dfc 15y ago
    Have you ever seen how quickly money is moved/laundered after an ATM skimming operation?
jacobr 15y ago
Swede here, and as paranoid as the next person. I moved from Gmail due to privacy concerns. I block a lot of tracking domains at DNS level. However, those are trade-offs with very little negative impact in my daily routines. A slightly worse UI for my email is nothing like moving from cards back to cash. It would be like moving from the Internet back to snail mail because email is insecure, or perhaps to Stallman type email/wget web browsing. Simply not worth it. Speaking of snail mail, I send a handful of those a year and barely know where to put the stamp. I handle my taxes, student loans, banking, social insurance (for my kid), etc, online. I would love better regulations for usage of consumer data, but cash? No way.
- _delirium 15y ago
  I get the convenience for things like paying rent, taxes, etc., but the main reason I don't use credit cards for small things is how much less convenient it is. Much easier to hand over 50 Kr than go through the routine of: gesture to indicate I'm paying with card / make way over to machine at the end of the bar (waiting if someone else is using it) / insert card / enter pin / pause to confirm it went through. Even if I have to wait to receive change, it's usually still faster.
  - ars 15y ago
    The main reason I use credit cards for everything including small things is that it's so much faster and more convenient. Also, I don't carry coins anymore, and I rarely carry bills either (I'm in the US).
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - niklas_a 15y ago
    The downside being that you have very little consumer protection if you buy something that is broken. I buy everything through my Mastercard credit card. I always pay my bill at the end of the month so I never pay anything extra for it. It has saved me countless of times when I have ordered stuff online or bought stuff in stores that they have refused to take back. And on top of that I get bonus points that have given me free flights.
greenyoda 15y ago
Cash is remarkably resistant to all the potential problems that could disable credit card transactions. For example, in 2003, much of the northeastern U.S. was affected by a power blackout that lasted over a day in some places, and of course credit card readers require power to operate. The servers that support credit card transactions have backup power (although only for a limited amount of time), but they're also vulnerable to network outages, software failures and deliberate attacks (we've seen how bad some of our major banks are at security). Having cash as a backup seems to be a prudent choice.
- _delirium 15y ago
  When I lived in Santa Cruz, we had a day-long internet outage due to a fiber-optic cable being cut, which led to most shops not taking CCs, despite there being no trouble with the power. A few mom-and-pop shops did good business by essentially agreeing to take IOUs; they wrote down CC #s on paper and manually ran them later, although afaik that's contrary to most CC companies' policy: http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12115324 http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12115324
  - patrickgzill 15y ago
    Actually it is still accepted by CC companies to use the old hand operated machines that have a roller, that takes an impression of the card.
    - justincormack 15y ago
      Not sure if those are still accepted in Europe; fairly sure they no longer work.
hexis 15y ago
Maybe it would be better to get rid of muggers instead of cash?
- icebraining 15y ago
  And how do you propose to do that? Pre-crime?
veb 15y ago
In New Zealand, we use cards for _everything_. Taxis, corner shops, bars... However, cash still pays a massive part in our economy. Mostly for people who want to remain anonymous with their transactions. Heaps of livelihoods depend on cash; farmers markets etc.
- te_chris 15y ago
  Came here to say this. I barely ever use cash here, even for small 1-2 dollar transactions. Cash is an inconvenience. Mobile eftpos is pretty sophisticated here and you'll find that a lot of stalls at places like farmers markets often have eftpos machines. We haven't got a square et al here yet, but once that arrives I can't really see people ever using cash for much of anything.
itmag 15y ago
I haven't noticed this at all, except for the public transportation. If anything, there are plenty of businesses that won't accept cards under a certain limit (usually 100 crowns, or about $15).
- hackermom 15y ago
  The only businesses that don't accept card/chip in Sweden today are the "turk shops" - the shady little corner shops that sell old, dry pick'n'mix candy and stale bread.
lignuist 15y ago
In combination with the transaction tax (currently discussed in the EU - [1]), this is a killer tool, to get more money from citizens. Also: how is this supposed to deal with power outages? No food, when there is no electricity? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax
algad 15y ago
So in a few years, the govt. will get a report at the end of the year showing that model Swede citizen has bought more than the recommended amount of meat or alcohol or, heavens forbid, has bought tobacco products. And not enough fruit/veggies. So the friendly Swede govt. will "recommend" that model Swede citizen fork over an insane amount of money and "optionally" attend re-education classes in healthy living. Can you spell Big, Big, Big Brother?
- joejohnson 15y ago
  It's not really like that in Sweden. A lot more would have to change in Sweden's national government; public policy, especially with regard to privacy issues, are amongst the best in the world. This doesn't mean a super-fascist regime is impossible in the future. But why would a shift away from paper money bring about the changes you propose?
  - algad 15y ago
    Because with all transactions recorded it would become possible and when something becomes possible, oftentimes govts are tempted. As an exemple, where I live the govt cross-checks your income tax filing with the automobile registration records and if there is, in their opinion, a discrepancy, you have to explain yourself. Also my comment does not single out Sweden, it is more of a general observation.
joejohnson 15y ago
A lot of voices in this thread seem concerned about the extra power this would grant the Swedish government. I'm confused: if anything, wouldn't this give the government less control? I'd be more afraid of Visa/MasterCard having a monopoly on simple transactions. Maybe eventually the credit card company's networks will be deemed a public good, and then government will take over the payment processing infrastructure, but until then I think the corporate overlord scenario is much scarier.
mongol 15y ago
Swede here. There is a part of the article that warrants special attention: > The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down. It was not long ago when armed robberies of security transports were a serious serious problem. Now when the article mentions it, I make a mental note that this has indeed decreased a lot. I think only a few years ago Sweden had lots more robberies of vehicles than the neighbouring countries. There were discussion about arming the guards, but it was argued that would escalate the violence. We have also seen many movie-like heists, the last (widely reported one) was a heist involving explosives, helicopters and sabotage of police helicopters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4stberga_helicopter_robbery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4stberga_helicopter_robbe...) I don't know but I assume that decreasing cash usage has been an active decision to combat the armed transport robberies.
- ftwinnovations 15y ago
  > The flip side is the risk of cybercrimes. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention the number of computerized fraud cases, including skimming, surged to nearly 20,000 in 2011 from 3,304 in 2000. Damn flip sides...
drucken 15y ago
I think this (article page) comment says a lot about the real motivation: "...So instead of taking the very SMALL and SLIM chance I'll get robbed by a street thug - I should switch to digital currency and just allow the banks to DEFINITELY ROB me... yeah, right..." I also found it interesting that the article made no mention at all about the tourism industry. So, already five strong reasons why cash will not go out of fashion any time soon: 1. Privacy. 2. Tourism. 3. Cost (tends to be important for non-banks). Both on-going and capital costs. 4. Store of value (tends to be important for elderly and some wealthy people). This can also cover electrical failure, database corruption or theft, including government or non-government financial fraud or error. 5. Ease of use (tends to be very important for elderly). In addition, there is simply no viable alternative that covers all or even most of the above.

72 points by mebe 15y ago

RugerRedhawk 15y ago

Not necessarily a good thing. No cash means no privacy.

gxs 15y ago
Agree. I never understand these dichotomies people set up. Why can't we just have both? The US system is a good balance, at least at the moment- you have an option to do either, with cards widely accepted except for a few ma and pa bars and restaurants.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

Chrono 15y ago

As a Swede I am used to always being able to pay with my card; Heading to the bar? No need to withdraw cash. Grabbing a taxi home late at night? No need to worry if you have enough cash, they accept cards. To add to this is that electronic transfer of money to both businesses and private citizens is quick and easy. If you transfer within the same bank it is instant and takes up to a day, depending on the hour, to transfer between banks.

tjoff 15y ago
As a Swede, I always bring cash. Heading to the bar? Already have cash in the wallet. Grabbing a taxi home late at night? No need to worry that I don't have enough cash on me. Store temporarily only accept cash due to some error? Replace panic with nonexistent queue. Regardless of whether you always pay cash or always pay with a card and regardless of whether you value privacy or not - you should always, in my opnion, have some cash with you. That has served me well and I've never in my life regretted having too much cash on me. The day I get robbed the cash I have on me is the least of my worries, if anything having an empty wallet might be provoking to someone that just tried to rob you (or a lot of money might get him (or her) greedy and ask for more, you never know). Note to self: Get rid of (and remember) the CCV code on the card and destroy the magnet stripe on my card. Anything not working with the chip isn't worth the hassle nor worth the trust of using a card (that might sound strange for some but in Sweden the use of the magnet stripe is quite rare).
- martinkallstrom 15y ago
  As a swede I never have cash on me anymore. But when I lived in Tokyo, the situation was reversed: low crime levels, high prices and nowhere to use a card, all contributed to me walking around with on average about $500 on any given day. That was a decade ago, though.
- Chrono 15y ago
  While you have a point about carrying cash I just have an irrational dislike towards change. The damn coins are heavy, close to worthless much of the time and overall annoying. And I have barely ever encountered a situation where the card machine is broken,at least not in recent years but it can of course happen. 'Removing' the CCV and magnetic stripe is actually a good idea - Wouldn't trust most (Swedish) places that don't use the chip to read the card data.
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  My Uncle who was in the Merchant Marine always used to keep a decoy wallet with expired cards and a tiny amount of cash so that if he got mugged/pick pocketed he would not lose much,
- lflux 15y ago
  All grocery stores around me use a sealed cash system. I've been more often stuck behind people wanting to pay with cash when the cash scanner breaks down compared to the card machine being down.
- kristiandupont 15y ago
  Out of your three examples, only the last one is an argument for cash over cards. Is that the reason why you prefer cash? Or is it the privacy thing?
  - tjoff 15y ago
    Cash is faster, I have better control over my money (but that's just because of how I'm handling them, YMMV), and the privacy part doesn't hurt - That's more of a principle than anything else, I really feel that we must have a anonymous way for payments AND that the anonymous method must not in any way be suspected of foul play just for using it. That is the first "danger" that will come, that people get so accustomed to cards that the day someone wants to pay a packet of gum with cash you get suspicious - that is something that I will truly dislike. And given the current development I see no reason as to why that won't be the case in the semi-near future. Also, cash is much safer. That everything that is needed to take money for me is written on a card that I have to pick out for every purchase is beyond lunacy. And people actually have stomach to say that post-it notes with your password is bad (it is, but in perspective)... So part of why I mostly use cash is of principle, cards are just so insecure. It's not that I'm afraid I'll get in trouble but part is principle and the other part is that I have no idea if my "secret" number is revealed to the wrong person. 8 months later I'll potentially be denied a purchase because the card is empty... I do however use my card from time to time, but mostly cash. And so far the benefits of using cash are actually greater than that of a card in my eyes - so even without the benefit of security and privacy I'd still use cash.
mjwalshe 15y ago
MM so your the annoying person who isn't organized enough to bring cash and causes long queues at the bar or coffee shop when I am buying my morning coffee and paper at the train station. The more you use your card the more chance of getting skimmed using cash for small purchases is a way of reducing your attack surface.
- Chrono 15y ago
  You are welcome! :) No really, the card readers are damn quick these days so it hardly takes much longer than paying with cash but I admit that it takes slightly longer. I would argue that most people pay their morning coffee with card in Sweden. I have used my card all over the world, for small and large purchases, and have yet to get it skimmed - lucky I guess. But another aspect of increased card use is that tax fraud becomes harder for the businesses as I believe the logging of card transactions are quite a lot harder to hide from the tax authority so I do see that as a positive thing.
  - mjwalshe 15y ago
    At my medium sized local station around 2k people catch trains within 45 mins every morning so cash is much much faster and allows a greater through put of transactions.
    - justincormack 15y ago
      We all use smart cards and no one pays at point of transport...
- jrockway 15y ago
  The more you use your card the more chance of getting skimmed using cash for small purchases is a way of reducing your attack surface. I don't get why people care about this. Credit card fraud is the bank's problem, not mine.
  - mjwalshe 15y ago

conradfr 15y ago

"If there were no cash, what would they do?" says Ulvaeus, 66. Well, he's in for a surprise ...

zyfo 15y ago

My 2 cents as a Swede: Lots of small businesses here in Stockholm refuse to accept cards under 50 kr ($8-9) because of the high fees mentioned in the article. Also if you're out at club, you get faster service if you just use cash. At various semi-official student parties "Cash is king!" is often mentioned in the invitation. Not to mention loyalty to small businesses (knowing how much it costs for them), privacy concerns and plain old style / swiftness.

read_wharf 15y ago

"One should be able to send money and donate money to different organizations without being traced every time," he says." That's a tough problem, which the US government will demand of foreign governments and fight tooth and nail at home.

gyardley 15y ago

I would have to trust my government a whole lot more than I do to be comfortable with this - and then trust that my government isn't going to change over the course of my lifetime. Surely Swedes buy drugs and cheat on their taxes, just like the rest of us. Even if you don't - why wouldn't you want to ensure you can quietly conduct an illegal transaction, should a currently unforseen need arise in the future? Getting rid of cash seems awfully shortsighted.

arketyp 15y ago
This problem is already (partly) solved by exchange in digital gold currency. Pecunix and e-gold are two such services.
- pdx 15y ago
  No, they're not.
- vier 15y ago
  I don't know any drug dealers who take that.
  - joejohnson 15y ago
    I know a few that take bitcoin :)
2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
To me this is like the argument that touch screen only phones are less good to keyboard/keypad phones because you lose the tactile feel and cannot text as you drive. I am not going to claim I am completely innocent, but a cashless society has many benefits. The fact that it may impede the ability of others to cheat on their taxes or purchase contraband is a poor excuse to remain on cash. Why does the majority of the population have to suffer?

rokhayakebe 15y ago

I wonder what that would do to the illegal drug industry.

jrockway 15y ago
A lot of PayPal transactions whose notes field say "ebay: vintage photograph" or something else that can be legitimately expensive and small.
nextparadigms 15y ago
Bitcoin? If there's a need for something, people will find ways to circumvent laws and tools against it. In a completely cash-less world say 100 years from now, the Bitcoin we have now will seem like version 0.01 of the anonymous digital money we'd have then.
ams6110 15y ago
Barter, or elaborate e-laundering of transactions. Where there's a market there will be a way. There was a story recently about the growing problem of theft of Tide laundry detergent, people paying drug dealers with stolen Tide detergent.
- WiseWeasel 15y ago
  Did the drug dealer happen to be a laundry detergent distributor?

mattmiller 15y ago

Do the Visas and Mastercards of Sweden still get their cut of every transaction? What a great way for these companies to solidify their corner of the market. Here is what I want: a way to do electronic transactions anonymously and cheaper that the current options. How do you do this while combating fraud?

dcosson 15y ago
That's kind of the whole point of Bitcoin. Free to use, not tied to any government or organization, and it can be completely anonymous. With that comes the downsides that you have to be technical and know what you're doing to use it, as does the person you're buying from, and bitcoins are basically as easy to steal as cash.
- mindslight 15y ago
  What is the 'anonymity' property of bitcoin I keep hearing about? Has there been a fundamental overhaul of the protocol since Satoshi's initial paper?
  - dfc 15y ago
    The parent means pseudonymous. Bitcoin is certainly not anonymous.
    - tjoff 15y ago
      And with the transaction history included, and most transactions, by necessity, tell something about you (at least the merchant probably needs to know where to send your item or whatever) it seems to me that it would be utterly trivial to get a hold of the real identity of the vast majority of the users after even his/hers first transactions. And this is valuable information and it will, as today, be bought and sold freely - maintaining a database of who is who seems like childs play. Not only that, but also who bought what (or at least from who), making it the least anonymous way to make a purchase imaginable (almost as bad as saying what you bought on twitter). For anyone hoping of using bitcoins for their everyday transactions, would that be any more anonymous than a credit card is today? Or even worse, it might give you the sense that you are anonymous when you are not.

paulhauggis 15y ago

The culture is based on government rule and control+high taxes, this is the next logical step and it doesn't surprise me.

Vitaly 15y ago

I expirienced the exact opposite in Maebashi Japan circa 2003. We had to go to Tokyo to find a place to get some cash out of our foreign issued credit cards, and even the local ones were not universally accepted. For such a high-tech nation as Japan I was completely shoked.

dfc 15y ago

Why can't a thief force you to transfer money electronically just like the money was transfered for the church donation? (I am not saying that the church donation was coerced.)

dfc 15y ago
This was a legitimate question. I'm sorry that someone took it otherwise. Whether going cashless will dramtically reduce the incentives for mugging people is an interesting question.
icebraining 15y ago
Presumably because the transaction would be logged and he would get immediately caught.
- dfc 15y ago
  Have you ever seen how quickly money is moved/laundered after an ATM skimming operation?

jacobr 15y ago

Swede here, and as paranoid as the next person. I moved from Gmail due to privacy concerns. I block a lot of tracking domains at DNS level. However, those are trade-offs with very little negative impact in my daily routines. A slightly worse UI for my email is nothing like moving from cards back to cash. It would be like moving from the Internet back to snail mail because email is insecure, or perhaps to Stallman type email/wget web browsing. Simply not worth it. Speaking of snail mail, I send a handful of those a year and barely know where to put the stamp. I handle my taxes, student loans, banking, social insurance (for my kid), etc, online. I would love better regulations for usage of consumer data, but cash? No way.

_delirium 15y ago
I get the convenience for things like paying rent, taxes, etc., but the main reason I don't use credit cards for small things is how much less convenient it is. Much easier to hand over 50 Kr than go through the routine of: gesture to indicate I'm paying with card / make way over to machine at the end of the bar (waiting if someone else is using it) / insert card / enter pin / pause to confirm it went through. Even if I have to wait to receive change, it's usually still faster.
- ars 15y ago
  The main reason I use credit cards for everything including small things is that it's so much faster and more convenient. Also, I don't carry coins anymore, and I rarely carry bills either (I'm in the US).
  - deleted 15y ago
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- niklas_a 15y ago
  The downside being that you have very little consumer protection if you buy something that is broken. I buy everything through my Mastercard credit card. I always pay my bill at the end of the month so I never pay anything extra for it. It has saved me countless of times when I have ordered stuff online or bought stuff in stores that they have refused to take back. And on top of that I get bonus points that have given me free flights.

greenyoda 15y ago

Cash is remarkably resistant to all the potential problems that could disable credit card transactions. For example, in 2003, much of the northeastern U.S. was affected by a power blackout that lasted over a day in some places, and of course credit card readers require power to operate. The servers that support credit card transactions have backup power (although only for a limited amount of time), but they're also vulnerable to network outages, software failures and deliberate attacks (we've seen how bad some of our major banks are at security). Having cash as a backup seems to be a prudent choice.

_delirium 15y ago
When I lived in Santa Cruz, we had a day-long internet outage due to a fiber-optic cable being cut, which led to most shops not taking CCs, despite there being no trouble with the power. A few mom-and-pop shops did good business by essentially agreeing to take IOUs; they wrote down CC #s on paper and manually ran them later, although afaik that's contrary to most CC companies' policy: http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12115324 http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12115324
- patrickgzill 15y ago
  Actually it is still accepted by CC companies to use the old hand operated machines that have a roller, that takes an impression of the card.
  - justincormack 15y ago
    Not sure if those are still accepted in Europe; fairly sure they no longer work.

hexis 15y ago

Maybe it would be better to get rid of muggers instead of cash?

icebraining 15y ago
And how do you propose to do that? Pre-crime?

veb 15y ago

In New Zealand, we use cards for _everything_. Taxis, corner shops, bars... However, cash still pays a massive part in our economy. Mostly for people who want to remain anonymous with their transactions. Heaps of livelihoods depend on cash; farmers markets etc.

te_chris 15y ago
Came here to say this. I barely ever use cash here, even for small 1-2 dollar transactions. Cash is an inconvenience. Mobile eftpos is pretty sophisticated here and you'll find that a lot of stalls at places like farmers markets often have eftpos machines. We haven't got a square et al here yet, but once that arrives I can't really see people ever using cash for much of anything.

itmag 15y ago

I haven't noticed this at all, except for the public transportation. If anything, there are plenty of businesses that won't accept cards under a certain limit (usually 100 crowns, or about $15).

hackermom 15y ago
The only businesses that don't accept card/chip in Sweden today are the "turk shops" - the shady little corner shops that sell old, dry pick'n'mix candy and stale bread.

lignuist 15y ago

In combination with the transaction tax (currently discussed in the EU - [1]), this is a killer tool, to get more money from citizens. Also: how is this supposed to deal with power outages? No food, when there is no electricity? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax

algad 15y ago

So in a few years, the govt. will get a report at the end of the year showing that model Swede citizen has bought more than the recommended amount of meat or alcohol or, heavens forbid, has bought tobacco products. And not enough fruit/veggies. So the friendly Swede govt. will "recommend" that model Swede citizen fork over an insane amount of money and "optionally" attend re-education classes in healthy living. Can you spell Big, Big, Big Brother?

joejohnson 15y ago
It's not really like that in Sweden. A lot more would have to change in Sweden's national government; public policy, especially with regard to privacy issues, are amongst the best in the world. This doesn't mean a super-fascist regime is impossible in the future. But why would a shift away from paper money bring about the changes you propose?
- algad 15y ago
  Because with all transactions recorded it would become possible and when something becomes possible, oftentimes govts are tempted. As an exemple, where I live the govt cross-checks your income tax filing with the automobile registration records and if there is, in their opinion, a discrepancy, you have to explain yourself. Also my comment does not single out Sweden, it is more of a general observation.

joejohnson 15y ago

A lot of voices in this thread seem concerned about the extra power this would grant the Swedish government. I'm confused: if anything, wouldn't this give the government less control? I'd be more afraid of Visa/MasterCard having a monopoly on simple transactions. Maybe eventually the credit card company's networks will be deemed a public good, and then government will take over the payment processing infrastructure, but until then I think the corporate overlord scenario is much scarier.

mongol 15y ago

Swede here. There is a part of the article that warrants special attention: > The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down. It was not long ago when armed robberies of security transports were a serious serious problem. Now when the article mentions it, I make a mental note that this has indeed decreased a lot. I think only a few years ago Sweden had lots more robberies of vehicles than the neighbouring countries. There were discussion about arming the guards, but it was argued that would escalate the violence. We have also seen many movie-like heists, the last (widely reported one) was a heist involving explosives, helicopters and sabotage of police helicopters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4stberga_helicopter_robbery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4stberga_helicopter_robbe...) I don't know but I assume that decreasing cash usage has been an active decision to combat the armed transport robberies.

ftwinnovations 15y ago
> The flip side is the risk of cybercrimes. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention the number of computerized fraud cases, including skimming, surged to nearly 20,000 in 2011 from 3,304 in 2000. Damn flip sides...

drucken 15y ago

I think this (article page) comment says a lot about the real motivation: "...So instead of taking the very SMALL and SLIM chance I'll get robbed by a street thug - I should switch to digital currency and just allow the banks to DEFINITELY ROB me... yeah, right..." I also found it interesting that the article made no mention at all about the tourism industry. So, already five strong reasons why cash will not go out of fashion any time soon: 1. Privacy. 2. Tourism. 3. Cost (tends to be important for non-banks). Both on-going and capital costs. 4. Store of value (tends to be important for elderly and some wealthy people). This can also cover electrical failure, database corruption or theft, including government or non-government financial fraud or error. 5. Ease of use (tends to be very important for elderly). In addition, there is simply no viable alternative that covers all or even most of the above.