Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

weforum.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 628 posts

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#221

Post by nvarsj »

samontar wrote: post #160
bouncycastle wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to share about my experience about the "permission" part. I once travelled to Beijing and had dinner in a fancy dumpling restaurant. When I went to pay the bill, my European bank instantly flagged the transaction and blocked my card from further use. I had no idea what happened until I called the bank later that evening (had to wait until they opened). So yeah, what you said happened to me - revoked instantly, s…

That’s anti-fraud to stop someone from stealing your card and using it elsewhere. You can usually pre-empt that by informing the bank of travel.

Anti-fraud is done for the bank's benefit, with little incentive to prevent false positives. In my own experience, 100% of my blocked transactions have been false over the last few years (since I moved out of the US, where fraud is more rampant). It's extremely annoying - it's my money, but I can't use it because the bank is being overly conservative.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#222

Post by ccernedswede »

gambiting wrote: post #212
AnabeeKnox wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The oldest part of the population have a hard time adapting to this situation" Also immigrants, non-Swedes and vulnerable people in society have a hard time. But the white people find the cashless society works well for them I suppose.

>>But the white people find the cashless society works well for them I suppose That's an extremely odd comment to make. What does being white have anything to do with this? There's loads of white immigrants in Sweden, they suffer from this exactly the same as everyone else.

Their post history is full of racial comments and should be flagged/investigated - potential concern trolling going on.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#224

Post by xrd »

xrd wrote: post #109
kristofferR wrote: post #97

I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't…

I'm curious, would your colleagues consider using bitcoin or ethereum as a method of exchange? Could you send them that to pay them back and they could pay on your behalf? If not, why? edit: auto complete filled in butcoin, corrected. Not sure how that got in my dictionary!

To the downvoters: care to say why? I read the entire article, read the comment I'm referring to, and have personal experience that the solution I'm proposing works as I'm describing. I'm left with only that everyone must think my question reeks of crypto currency evangelism, and that's a BAD thing here on HN. Is it something else? My grammar or phrasing?

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#225

Post by ptaipale »

kristofferR wrote: post #121
patd wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you asking a bit too much info for a simple SEPA transfer ? The IBAN should be all you really need, the rest are nice to have.

I've heard that too, but my bank (Sbanken, normally a good user friendly bank) wouldn't let the payment go through without all the fields filled out.

I suppose that would be because of EU regulations against money laundering.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#226

Post by wild_preference »

tedivm wrote: post #146
bamboozled wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best payment experience I’ve had is cash. I pay for what I need and when I leave the festival I can still use my “credits” hassle free anywhere I like.

Most of the cashless festivals return your unused "credits" pretty quickly after the festival. The real problem comes when the system breaks down- which I've seen happen at plenty of festivals. At that point if cash isn't an option then commerce simply stops- screwing both vendor and customer alike.

Festivals I've been to will, say, require deposits of 100 peso increments and then the beers cost 80 pesos. And you can't get your money out.

Even if you could get your money back, you're still waiting at lines to recharge the bracelet. It's a joke.

With cash, you just come prepared and withdraw at any ATM long before the festival. Bracelets didn't solve any problem except disconnect the money handling event from the purchasing event so that you lose track of it, like how microtransactions are never priced in actual currency.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#227

Post by yxhuvud »

jamesblonde wrote: post #17

As a resident of Sweden, i can only say that this is the future for all western countries. Life is just better without cash. We don't pay the mental tax of always ensuring i have dollar bills on me to tip left, right, and center. Your phone is enough to get you through the day. The govt is still run by the people for the people here, so most people aren't worried about totalitarianism. Most beggars now have signs wit…

It is the future, but there are at the same time a lot of unsolved problems involved. Tourists not being able to pay unless they happen to have a VISA card is one, old people not understanding technology another. And the dependence on the private sector for cash that the article refers to is also a real problem.

But I do agree with the premise that it is progress in action, it just isn't the case that we are moving towards a steady state but the end goal is still constantly evolving.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#228

Post by PeterisP »

alkonaut wrote: post #186
PeterisP wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping non-white immigrants (presumably residents of Sweden staying there for a nontrivial time) from getting a Swedish bank account? If there are significant barriers to that then the "getting into a club issue" is a trifle compared to the broader participation in society. E.g. how are they getting paid for their work if almost no legal employers will pay salaries in cash?

I think it may be a misconception from someone from e.g the US where there is a threshold for getting a bank account.

Yeah, around here any old homeless alcoholic would have a bank account, because that's the only way how they'd get social security payments, and also any student (or working teenager) would have a bank account, because that's the only way how they'd get paid for a summer job or internship or study loan or whatever.

A bank account is a basic thing that's required (at least in come countries) for any participation in the economy and should be available to anyone; IIRC there's an EU directive about a requirement that everybody must be able to access basic banking services.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#229

Post by yxhuvud »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #56
jamesblonde wrote: post #17

As a resident of Sweden, i can only say that this is the future for all western countries. Life is just better without cash. We don't pay the mental tax of always ensuring i have dollar bills on me to tip left, right, and center. Your phone is enough to get you through the day. The govt is still run by the people for the people here, so most people aren't worried about totalitarianism. Most beggars now have signs wit…

> Life is just better without cash. Even if you believe that, allowing private for-profit businesses (banks, credit card companies) to skim a percentage off of every single monetary transaction to line the pockets of their shareholders is utterly grotesque. It amounts to a mandatory tax, except none of the tax is going to the benefit of the taxed. At a minimum, a reasonable cashless society would require monetary tra…

In practice, similar fees are attached to businesses that move their cash to their bank account. Many companies (including public ones - many buses don't accept cash anymore) actively stop accepting cash because it increases the risk of getting robbed, and that is an increasing pressure as fewer and fewer handle cash.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#230

Post by rocqua »

dao- wrote: post #204
kristofferR wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that too, but my bank (Sbanken, normally a good user friendly bank) wouldn't let the payment go through without all the fields filled out.

IBAN == bank account number with the bank info baked in, although I think for foreign transfers you might still have to provide the bank code separately. I've never been asked for an address when doing a wire transfer. From what I've heard banks stopped validating the name field a long time ago and you can enter whatever you want.

Here in NL, the name field recently has gotten even stronger validation. I think this coincided with a system where minor spelling mistakes are corrected by a suggested "Did you mean ...?"
Post reply on HN