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Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

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Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#31

Post by Svip »

jbergens wrote: post #26
Svip wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another consideration is PoS cost. In Denmark, I know that credit card PoS's are super expensive to rent. And you need to rent them, because if you buy them - which is even more expensive - you'll have to replace them every year. So you need a certain amount of turnover to have a credit card PoS in Denmark. The card PoS's come in two forms; one that only takes the Danish Dankort (which is the cheaper) and one that al…

There are newer solutions like iZettle for cards that costs less. In Sweden we also have Swish, payment by smartphone without cards, but that is also a bit harder for older people.

I've encountered one merchant in Denmark using iZettle. He has since replaced it with the regular PoS. I can only imagine that is more expensive for him, but I wonder why he abandoned iZettle? Maybe it doesn't work that well? I am honestly wondering why I don't see more usage of iZettle. It could just be a Danish thing.

And yes, there is Swish/MobilePay, but that only really works if you're local. A tourist - even one from a neighbouring country - will not have access to that.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#32

Post by ferzul »

tedeh wrote: post #10
reaperducer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do poor people function in a cashless society?

A bank account is a right for every EU citizen: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr... Banks are not allowed to refuse account opening to any resident.

Well, I don't know if it's the difference between “resident” and “citizen”, but i was told “no” or “maybe in a few weeks” many times when trying to open a bank account in October/November last year in Germany. “Maybe in a few weeks” is as good as a refusal.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#33

Post by onion2k »

techsupporter wrote: post #24
notRobot wrote: post #2

Being able to pay through cards and phones is super convenient, but cash should never not be an option. Card companies, payment apps and banks are constantly tracking your purchases and profiling you. This data can be leaked/stolen/sold, and is always available to governments and those in/with power. Cash is (almost completely) anonymous. You should always be able to pay with cash if you want.

> You should always be able to pay with cash if you want. Why, other than your privacy? If I own a business, why should I be barred from choosing to not accept cash? Paper money is more labor-intensive to handle and opens my employees up to risk of being robbed for that cash or sickened by handling dirty bills. As for people who may not be able to pay electronically, why can I not choose to not have them as customers…

Why, other than your privacy?

Businesses that don't accept cash don't make any money when the infrastructure fails. If your revenue is dependent on your PoS device, Wi-Fi, ISP, payment provider, the payment provider's network infrastructure, banking network, and more that's a lot of risk. For most independent businesses having a working cash register and a bank account that enables cash deposits would be a better option than the cost of SLAs and insurance against not being open.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#34

Post by bjelkeman-again »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #18
LessDmesg wrote: post #11

And when the (broke) Swedish government raises taxes sky-high, they will all flock to cash, gold, bitcoin and other off-the-radar payment methods.

Government debt as a percentage of GDP is very low in Sweden: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-to...

Yep. Sweden’s debt per citizen is about $10k. Compared to US debt per citizen which is $86k

[1] https://www.finansportalen.se/sverigesekonomi/

[2] http://www.theusdebtclock.com/

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#35

Post by username90 »

jussij wrote: post #22
tedeh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bank account is a right for every EU citizen: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr... Banks are not allowed to refuse account opening to any resident.

From your link: > In some EU countries, your bank might still charge you an annual fee for this basic payment account. This fee should remain reasonable. For someone who is really poor, that annual account keeping fee is a much bigger hit to their pocket when compared to others not doing it so tough.

It is around $20 a year, there are no people poor enough for that to be an issue in Europe.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#36

Post by michaelmrose »

In a society where cash is an option there is a roof on how much money you can extract from the population as if you ask for too much people will increasingly avail themselves of cash.

The cost of switching to using cash is a trip to the bank/atm.

The closer you get to cashless the more you can afford to screw people to the wall.

For example does anyone recall the idea us bankers floated about negative nominal interest on checking?

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#37

Post by aglavine »

notRobot wrote: post #2

Being able to pay through cards and phones is super convenient, but cash should never not be an option. Card companies, payment apps and banks are constantly tracking your purchases and profiling you. This data can be leaked/stolen/sold, and is always available to governments and those in/with power. Cash is (almost completely) anonymous. You should always be able to pay with cash if you want.

Don't know why an option of both anonymity and cashless isn't possible.

Why couldn't a virtual wallet with just a fake name and a password exists?

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#38

Post by username90 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #25
username90 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have bank accounts and debit cards like everyone else? In Sweden everyone can get Visa and Mastercard debit cards so you can even do internet purchases everywhere with them. If you mean how they transfer money between each other, they just use smart phones and Swish. Beggars even ask for money that way.

And when you lose your card because you have a problem keeping track of physical objects do you then just go to the bank and they use the card replacing machine to issue you a new one right on the spot? That's pretty cool, I wish we had something like that here in Denmark because wow, I lose my card a lot and I have to go weeks without one. One time I lost my card, ordered a new one, the card arrived but the pin code…

If you really lose your card that often why don't you just order two to begin with? You'd have to take precautions like this even with normal money, since if you misplaced your monthly allowance you'd still be out for several weeks.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#39

Post by maximente »

techsupporter wrote: post #24
notRobot wrote: post #2

Being able to pay through cards and phones is super convenient, but cash should never not be an option. Card companies, payment apps and banks are constantly tracking your purchases and profiling you. This data can be leaked/stolen/sold, and is always available to governments and those in/with power. Cash is (almost completely) anonymous. You should always be able to pay with cash if you want.

> You should always be able to pay with cash if you want. Why, other than your privacy? If I own a business, why should I be barred from choosing to not accept cash? Paper money is more labor-intensive to handle and opens my employees up to risk of being robbed for that cash or sickened by handling dirty bills. As for people who may not be able to pay electronically, why can I not choose to not have them as customers…

two reasons come to mind immediately:

- it is low key discrimination of un/underbanked. imagine a "cashless utopia" where the only way you can buy groceries is by either:

* paying a "human usage fee" to use the cash line because businesses have axed labor down to the bone

* for those of the "efficiency" mindset, who just don't accept cash at all, the only way to get a credit or debit card is paying a bank a nice monthly fee. because, well, your credit score is bad. or something.

- it signals that as a business owner you're probably on the take on this whole hoovering up data and using it to your benefit without my consent or profit. you may know me as a loyal customer but i'd prefer to stay out of your MapReduce jobs by using cash, and i'd /especially/ prefer not to be sold or haggled over if you and other bakeries (or software shops) decide to hold church and compare lists to derive insight or other perverted data stuff, as credit cards and banks probably do today.

edit: here's a third - what's the environmental impact of having all this tech running (POS terminal, CC database, all the steps in between)? is it >> cash? i don't know the answer here, though.

another reason: when you pay in cash, your debt to the merchant is settled, right there. as a merchant accepting say a CC, if you fail to run an authorization check, you eat the cost. but what if the power runs out/comms down/servers overloaded/etc.? things get a lot hairier.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#40

Post by nnq »

Cash in the only practical anonymous-when-you-need-it-to-be way to pay still.

Don't let it die until we have alternative suitable anonymous and un-blockable-by-cyberattacks (eg. "it must still work while the internet is down") currencies!

(Note: no, we don't have yet, all current crypto currencies are "barely working prototypes" at best, all of them have issues that still need ironing out! Bitcoin itself is like a proof-of-concept-pre-MVP that got "rushed into production". And the blockchain itself... we NEED to have a way of fully erasing history from it, like paper money do, we don't yet know how to do that while keeping the nice properties of blockchain... all these are open research questions, Satoshi only made the first baby step!)

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