[deleted]
In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
11–20 of 53 posts
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#12Yeah, and allow government, secret services, police and the NSA to track your entire life. Fuck that, I'm sticking with cash.
That seems like a solvable problem though. For instance, prepaid cards or apps based on a similar principle should fix this.
Ok, but how do you buy the prepaid card? Through a track able electronic purchase I'd guess.
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#13Yeah, and allow government, secret services, police and the NSA to track your entire life. Fuck that, I'm sticking with cash.
That seems like a solvable problem though. For instance, prepaid cards or apps based on a similar principle should fix this.
By KYC laws prepaid CCs have to be registered with your name and address.
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#14Biggest benefit of cash-free economy not mentioned in the article: escape from the Zero Bound in conducting monetary policy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_lower_bound). It can't be that central bankers in Sweden aren't realizing this; Sweden's central bankers have always been a notch above performance-wise.
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#15Here in Sweden most people don't carry any cash and would buy a stick of gum with their card. If you want to give someone money, you "swish" it to them. Swish is a massive smartphone app for people to people payments supported by all banks.
Is there any fee/commission for Swish? If there is not, was that a voluntary choice by the banks, or a regulator's requirement?
Not as of now. But as Fnord mentioned, they might be charging 1 kr in the future which is fine.
If I were to guess how it works it would be like:
The receiver of a swish actually gets the money from their own bank while the sender actually just sends money this their own bank as well.
Then the senders bank will set a IOU to the receivers bank to balance things out and that will get fixed in a couple of days (the whole bank day transfers)
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#16Big downside: authorities can lock you out of the financial system.
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#17Biggest benefit of cash-free economy not mentioned in the article: escape from the Zero Bound in conducting monetary policy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_lower_bound ). It can't be that central bankers in Sweden aren't realizing this; Sweden's central bankers have always been a notch above performance-wise.
Kinda sad that the only way we will ever solve this problem seems to be by pure accident.
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#18Meanwhile in NYC, paying by anything other than cash generally requires a $10-15 minimum. I find it incredibly inefficient and am sick of having to hold cash and constantly go to ATMs.
I understand that the reason these card minimums are in place is because the card companies charge a non-trivial amount that wipes out the store's margins at low prices. How can we solve this?
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#19Meanwhile in NYC, paying by anything other than cash generally requires a $10-15 minimum. I find it incredibly inefficient and am sick of having to hold cash and constantly go to ATMs. I understand that the reason these card minimums are in place is because the card companies charge a non-trivial amount that wipes out the store's margins at low prices. How can we solve this?
Bitcoin?
Re: In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears
#20Meanwhile in NYC, paying by anything other than cash generally requires a $10-15 minimum. I find it incredibly inefficient and am sick of having to hold cash and constantly go to ATMs. I understand that the reason these card minimums are in place is because the card companies charge a non-trivial amount that wipes out the store's margins at low prices. How can we solve this?
I find that true in grocery stores and bodegas, but less so in coffeeshops or food trucks -- perhaps places that value capturing loyalty and repeat customers over the margin of an individual transaction.