191–200 of 508 posts
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I know a business that went cash-only for the same reason in reverse: the thieves were doing it via chargebacks saying they never heard of the place. Couldn't win disputes even with video evidence. They put in an ATM, can't charge that back.
Unfortunately, the other thieves will rip a hole in the wall to steal the ATM.
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Credit card processing costs in the US are absurd. Interchange fees are around 2% on average vs a cap of 0.3% for credit cards and 0.2% for debit cards in the EU. But cash handling costs a substantial amount too. We should probably all be paying by debit card and charging extra for cash or credit card.
Should be noted that in most of the EU cashback programmes are also not as big as in the US. Never heard of anyone getting "2% back from everything". That said, a middleman that takes a smaller fee is still much better for the economy than a middleman that takes in an oversized fee and then magnanimously hands back a chunk of it. Especially when that middleman is a worldwide oligopoly with far too much power. I try t…
If they charge 100% on everyones transactions then my delux diamond card (sorry you dont qualify) can give me 200% cashback and everyone else can go f' themselves.
Ahh the land of the free
I've noticed recently more of the food truck or farmers' market type businesses aren't officially cashless, which is illegal in California AFAIU. They just don't have change for a $20. It's a real problem that some people cannot afford the fees on a bank account, but I would prefer that we find some way to provide everyone with minimum banking services. Like a no-fee government-provided debit card. I know, the govern…
Malicious compliance is fun.
Besides, having to have change is the really big cost of cash handling. Almost all your customers come in with big notes from an ATM and leave with smaller notes or coins, so you have to keep getting change from the bank. Just rebrand "not giving change" as "mandatory tipping" and it's even a pro-worker move!
I've noticed recently more of the food truck or farmers' market type businesses aren't officially cashless, which is illegal in California AFAIU. They just don't have change for a $20. It's a real problem that some people cannot afford the fees on a bank account, but I would prefer that we find some way to provide everyone with minimum banking services. Like a no-fee government-provided debit card. I know, the govern…
> It's a real problem that some people cannot afford the fees on a bank account Plenty of banks offer no minimum checking accounts. Whenever this gets dug into, the fees they supposedly can’t afford are when their balances go negative, which is harder to justify being free.
Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages. There's a completely different take; Civic resilience From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations. Also,…
If the scenario plays out as you describe the fiat currency won't be worth the fancy material it's printed on.
Deloitte calculate the per day impact of a temporary shutdown would be on average $23.6 million per 10 million population. Not that bad actually. But that figure seems based on the immediate hourly estimate from places like The Uptime Institute and LSE. Other estimates puts it at between $11Bn per day for the whole USA [0] and only $10Bn for the whole year [1]. In reality the impact quickly compounds, making day 2 (24-48 hours) significant worse, and so on [2]. I am quite sure the aggregate downtime of AWS, Azure, Google and other cloud services in the past year has exceeded 24 hours per capita civilian use.
Being able to take cash, as a "flywheel", makes or breaks businesses in those times.
[0] https://bnn.network/finance-nav/unraveling-the-impact-of-glo...
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/07/internet-shutdow...
[2] According to studies I got masters students at York Business School to undertake.
edit: formatting
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> It's a real problem that some people cannot afford the fees on a bank account Plenty of banks offer no minimum checking accounts. Whenever this gets dug into, the fees they supposedly can’t afford are when their balances go negative, which is harder to justify being free.
For plenty of banks that's not the case. For ex Wells Fargo charges $10/month if your balance is less than $500[1]. That's a big deal for some people. Ally Bank offers no minimum, but they're online only and reimburse for (some) ATM fees rather than it being free upfront. Many ordinary people who try to get an ordinary bank account at an ordinary bank they take the bus and the walk to end up paying fees. [1]: https:/…
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...then don't buy things from those businesses? We need a stronger reason than "I want that" to force businesses to give us things — otherwise how do we decide whose preferences we should mandate?
There is an element of injustice, the poor and immigrants may not have the same access to banks and credit as others do.
Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages. There's a completely different take; Civic resilience From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations. Also,…
> It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. But most businesses do. The main issue is there: why should a business be forced by law to accept cash if they absolutely need electricty and cables to work as a business ? It's one step below forcing them to accept hand written checks. Those are also extremely resilient, you just need a pen and paper. But god no I wouldn't want to deal with…
That said, I can also understand businesses wanting to do away with it - no need to dealt with it; secure it, count it, deposit it, … etc.
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like what European Union did with the basic bank account
I understand those are more expensive than normal accounts on commercial basis, bad value for the money. It's only that the bank cannot refuse to open a basic account because they don't like the customer's business. I doubt a debit card is included. Those accounts are needed because all wages and even social benefits are only paid by bank transfer in most EU countries. Disclaimer: Haven't checked the details now.
Well that's dumb. The UK version is fee-free and of course it includes a debit card; how would you use the account otherwise? Passbook account like the 1970s? They don't want you tying up valuable cashier time.
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Big problem is AML and KYC related legislation - this is expensive to do for people who are statistical outliers. I.e. people with low income. So it'd have to be government subsidised banking.
I find it hard to believe it is expensive to do AML and KYC for customers whose balances never cross 5 figures. It seems they would almost never go over any thresholds that require reporting.
people who are statistical outliers. I.e. people with low income