Where may I read about anything supporting your statement "cash is primarily used for illegal activities"? I highly doubt that this is the case, unless there are more illegal activities out there than legal ones.
Here for example: https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash-still-king-criminals-prefer-cash-for-money-laundering https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash...
I would assume the metric isn’t number of transactions, but total transaction value. It’s really uncommon to pay for really expensive things (e.g., houses, cars, boats) in cash, and doing so almost always means that the duffel bag of cash came from shady means.
deleted 1y ago
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OK, but look at the original statement, that cash is mainly used for illegal activities. I do not think that is true.
Now, check this out:
> Cash was the most frequently used payment method at the POS in the euro area and was used in 52% (59%) of transactions, but the share of cash payments has declined.
> Cash was the most frequently used payment method for small-value payments at the POS, in line with previous surveys. For payments over €50, cards were the most frequently used payment method.
> Cash was the dominant means of payment in P2P transactions, accounting for 41% of such payments. Cards and mobile apps were used for 33%, credit transfers for 9% and instant payments for 6% of P2P transactions.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/ecb_surveys/space/html/ecb.space2024~19d46f0f17.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/ecb_surveys/space/html/ecb.s...
This is to be expected though:
> The most frequently used instrument for online payments was cards, representing 48% (51%) of transactions. The share of e-payment solutions, i.e. payment wallets and mobile apps, was 29% (26%).
> The large majority of recurring payments were made using direct debit, with credit transfers ranking in second place.
Regarding privacy:
> A majority of euro area consumers (58%) said they were concerned about their privacy when performing digital payments or other banking activities.
I think they genuinely care about privacy and are not thugs.
Not sure if "mainly" means in terms of total value, number of transactions or people using it. If I would be to guess it would be total value.
Now, these guys might be biased, but to quote: "The EUR 500 note alone accounts for over 30% of the value of all banknotes in circulation (1)." (https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash-still-king-criminals-prefer-cash-for-money-laundering https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash...).
That would suggest to me that at least 30% of the value of cash is used for "shady" stuff (I mean I don't know anybody that would use 500 eur bills).
The fact that cash would be used mostly for illegal activities by value (I don't know if it is really the case), does not imply that "people that use cash use if for illegal activities".
I do not pretend that I know either, to be honest.
That said, there is "For payments over €50, cards were the most frequently used payment method.", which means they primarily use cash below 50 EUR, and you cannot do much illegal purchases with 50 EUR, it is such a small amount.
Technically they said,
> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities is pretty well established.
Another plausible reading could be that this is just a widely believed incorrect thing (or most exactly, they are just saying it is widely believed, and not anything about the underlying truthfulness of the belief). This seems easy for somebody to observe about the society around them (although I bet it is a regional thing, or something like that) and less likely for there to be hard data on. Perception is also more likely than actual facts to drive behavior, right?
> They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions.
This, on the other hand, seems like a specific action taken by the government to solve a specific problem, so I’d expect it to be well documented…
> the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established
I think that's very hyperbolic. In france most people I know carry cash and use it regularly (not as much as cards), the gen X and older tend to find it strange to pay for small sums (eg bread) with card. Germany is infamously almost cash-only. In many Central Europe countries, shops taking card is not a given (Bulgaria, Hungary).
> Germany is infamously almost cash-only.
Let's not exaggerate. While I am often enough exasperated at how often certain restaurants or bars will still only accept cash (or sometimes EC card), I'm still able to do about 90% of my transactions by card.
In the US, cash-only businesses usually attract auditors from the IRS (or did, until they gutted the agency).
Interesting! As a tourist, almost all my transactions had to be cash: but ofc a tourist and a resident don't have the same spending patterns (mostly bars and restaurant for me)
Supermarkets and most stores where you'd buy everyday stuff (clothes, electronics, books, ...), especially if they're chains, will take card. It's really mostly independently owned kiosks, bars and restaurants that are holdouts, and even there the card acceptance rate is increasing.
> Germany is infamously almost cash-only.
COVID caused a major boost in shops adding card payments. Most shops now accept them even for small payments.
There are places which don't take cards, many of them also don't print receipts without asking, which might indicate than an tax audit might give interesting results ...
Some shops try to go towards "card only"
> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established. They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions.
At least in Germany in particular older people prefer to pay cash if possible - this gives the banks also less leverage with respect to abhorent fees. Since many people in Germany neither trust the banks nor the government anymore, acting this way is very rational.
Also the arguments concerning cash restrictions are seen very differently by the population: since there existed two oppressive regimes on German soil in the 20th century, a lot of people realize that the restrictions on cash are just another step towards restrictions of the citizen's freedoms (thus I am honestly surprised all the time that a lot of US-Americans who are so freedom-loving and distrust the government concerning the restrictions of civil rights are not in love of cash).
Thus, in Germany there exists the saying "Bargeld ist gelebte Freiheit" [cash is lived freedom].
> Since many people in Germany neither trust the banks nor the government anymore, acting this way is very rational.
Speak for yourself, this is either heavily overstated or a fringe opinion, luckily. Most people definitely do trust both government and banks to a sensible degree, even if they don’t like some decisions.
Some people like you apparently also don’t appreciate the immense freedom of SEPA transactions. Sure it’s good to have cash as an escape hatch for the occasional transaction off the record, but for almost everything else bank transfers are safe, inaccessible to third parties, free from fees, and easy to use. And above all else, we have a working democracy and not an oppressive regime? This whole debate often feels very disconnected and overblown in Germany.
> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities is pretty well established.
I'd rather have that than a complete loss of privacy.
The U.S. consumer economy functions primarily on debt from start to end these days, complete with debt collectors who buy it pennies on the dollar and then con grieving relatives into voluntarily accepting duty towards those debts that would otherwise have been discharged by death. So there are quite a lot of people these days who couldn’t use the European debit methods because they don’t have the cash and likely never will, what with one quarter of the country’s households unable to afford housing on effectively poverty wages. The federal government can’t crack down on this because they’d have to replace that consumer debt with public assistance. The puritanical / religious orgs control majority voting blocs that haven’t aged out as they used to and so are a continued threat to elected officials. So the threat those groups are holding over Visa/MC is triple-pronged: not only will they boycott (they can afford to), they can also leverage politicians (enforce our will or get ejected from office) and threaten capitalism (better economic armageddon than unpalatable sexual expressions). Valve can’t hold a candle to that kind of leverage, not without giving up the neutral-apolitical stance that most tech corporations prefer. They would essentially have to promote a counter-bloc of voters to counter-pressure the U.S. House and Senate into passing payment provider neutrality laws through elections. Valve is vanishingly unlikely to do this, and so their only choice is to prostrate to Visa/MC (or stop accepting USD) until the puritan bloc ages out in two or three decades. They can certainly afford to wait, especially given that these incremental religious bans advance slower than their revenues.
> because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions.
thats BS. most people have indeed had such, and while not frequent, it was fully legit.
The real reason they want to do away with cash is so they can monitor everything you buy, and in time, perhaps more
I'm not sure which European country you're talking about, but in France most transaction are now done by card. Yes it's mostly debit cards, but they're still handled almost exclusively by Visa and Mastercard.
Many banks have tried to start other electronic payments independent from those 2 (for example Wero) but it doesn't really get any traction.
So I don't see how the duopoly is any less powerful here.
I think France is a bit of an exception because there's the CB network[1]. Most cards here are either CB/Mastercard or CB/Visa and a lot of stuff uses CB by default if I understand it correctly. According to their website the network accounts for 65% percent of national transactions[2] but I'm not sure of how to interpret their wording.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CB_Bank_Card_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CB_Bank_Card_Group
[2] https://www.cartes-bancaires.com/cb/chiffres/ https://www.cartes-bancaires.com/cb/chiffres/
Cards and transfers are different things though. What I have seen from Wero (released to the public) are Peer to Peer transfers, so if you don't need to transfer money to a person, Wero will not help you for now.
Some card fees are capped by the EU: https://www.visa.co.uk/about-visa/visa-in-europe/fees-and-interchange.html https://www.visa.co.uk/about-visa/visa-in-europe/fees-and-in..., quoting "From 9 December 2015, European regulation on interchange fees (Regulation (EU) 2015/751 of the European Parliament and of the European Council of 29 April 2015 on interchange fees for card-based transactions, “the IFR”) imposes interchange fee caps on most product types within the European Economic Area (EEA).".
It is true though that French banks have huge fees even for debit (0.20%) compared to, for example The Netherlands (0.02 eur).
So the doupoly is not as powerful everywhere, but I have no clue why the difference.
1y ago
Debit cards are really common in the US as well. Pretty much every bank gives you one with a checking account and they’re accepted everywhere. You’ll have no problem never getting a credit card, aside from a couple of very specific cases such as renting a car where they’ll require a substantial deposit if you don’t use a credit card.
But it’s irrelevant to this issue, because the debit cards are still handled by Visa or Mastercard.
> They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions
I wonder what is the source for this information?
In my country it's perfectly legal to request your payment in cash. And it should be paid to you in cash if you request it. Therefore, 500 banknotes make perfect sense, making however any payment with it really stressful for you and the teller