251–260 of 498 posts
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Cash only restaurants are often 10-20 percent cheaper than comparable restaurants.
That would be because at least some of the cash bypasses the cash register and the tax report. Edit: alternatively they might not have same profitability requirement as other restaurants, because a cash-only restaurant is perfect front for money laundering.
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There were already costs. There were always costs and risks associated with cash handling: armored trucks doing cash collection, risks of money in tills being lost. If it really were a lot cheaper you wouldn’t see businesses clamouring to go cashless. That’s not to say I think cash should go the way of the dodo, but I don’t think there’s that much difference paying g4s to collect your money vs Mastercard. IMO the ben…
I work in a bank and cash handling is a major headache in terms of internal control, logistics, reconciliation and AML. It's a large extra cost. It is much cheaper for the bank and customers to use cards, but where I live the banks own a payment network that does not involve visa and mastercard so the cost is much lower and there is no rent seeking so card use have no fees. We also have an app for sending "cash" for…
Not using cash means someone gets a cut of a processing fee. Every time, with almost no exceptions. I’m not down to have rent seeking companies taking a slice of my hard earned money just so I don’t have to manage a few pieces of paper. You’re generally paying 3-4 percent of every transaction now, as that’s pretty standard for debit cards on businesses, and it doesn’t matter if it’s charged to the card holder or the…
There are now systems that are far cheaper than credit cards or debit cards. In the US it's called: FedNow. The system enables direct bank transfers in real-time, almost for free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow The support is still very limited, but in India a similar system (UPI) managed to become ubiquitous.
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>Citation needed. I've been depositing cash for years, with multiple banks, and nobody has ever charged a "handling fee". It's a fee associated with business accounts. > https://www.bankofamerica.com/smallbusiness/deposits/resourc... >Cash Deposit Processing No fee for first $7,500 in cash deposited per statement cycle at an ATM or Financial Center; then $0.30 per $100 deposited thereafter
0.3% vs. 3-4%
No, the total costs of handling cash currency & coins for large businesses will still add up to 3% or more which is in the range of the fees of credit-cards processing. Costs of accepting cash also includes:
- paying for armored trucks and security guards to transport bags of cash to the bank
- percentage of cash lost to crime such as
--- employees/cashiers theft/skimming by handling cash,
--- robberies,
--- counterfeit bills
https://www.google.com/search?q=retailer+total+costs+of+hand...
For a business, a true arbitrage of not paying 3% credit-card fees would be convincing customers to pay by check or electronic ACH bank account withdrawal. Those payment methods avoid the costs of managing loose cash and also avoid the fees from the credit-card processors. But they also have the same privacy concerns as CCs if customers care about that aspect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were already costs. There were always costs and risks associated with cash handling: armored trucks doing cash collection, risks of money in tills being lost. If it really were a lot cheaper you wouldn’t see businesses clamouring to go cashless. That’s not to say I think cash should go the way of the dodo, but I don’t think there’s that much difference paying g4s to collect your money vs Mastercard. IMO the ben…
I do not think so. Otherwise the British government would not have needed to outlaw charging customers more for card transactions to encourage the move away from cash.
Alternatively, they were counting the time they spent cash handling as a business owner as zero cost, which isn’t really true.
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I'm in Sweden, a strong contender for the most cashless country, and I don't know what the banknotes look like. They were changed some 5 or 6 years ago and I haven't paid with or even withdrawn cash since then. For illustration, cash is generally not accepted outside of grocery stores and some chains. For a typical restaurant, coffee shop or takeaway there's very little chance they take cash. Street vendors may take…
> I really don't like cash and am happy to see it basically dead in the country. What would you do in case of a emergency or natural distaster? Basically a situation where any of the following is not available for any period of time: power, network, financial infrastructure, access to digital devices. 1. On personal level: Maybe your wallet and phone was stolen 2. Region: Power/Network is down 3. National level: the…
A personal-level outage is a problem but less so than with cash. I have three separate items on me I can use to pay - my card holder with bank cards, my phone and my watch. That's more redundancy than with cash, which is one item (wallet).
Power or network outages aren't a big issue. I've experienced those and it's smooth. Most payment machines work fine without power (batteries) or without network because they then store the transactions locally and send them later. I've even had lunch when the lunch restaurant was having IT problems and couldn't accept any payments - they noted how many people came on paper and I came back the next day to pay, as I'm sure the vast majority of patrons did.
Bank or card issuer outages are handled by using another card or payment method. If some bank's cards aren't working (uncommon but it happens), mobile payments generally work still, and most people have more than one card.
Major national level outages are a concern. It would be impossible to buy e.g. a train ticket as those require immediate payment, so if somehow Internet was down nationwide, you couldn't get a train ticket online or at the ticket machines. This is one major goal that the e-krona (state-issued digital currency) project is meant to address as e-krona is intended to also work offline.
I believe once we go fully cashless, we'll regret it and wish we could go back. I can barely enjoy a full day without being required to bring my phone / debit card with me because the register does not accept cash.
That's a new one. Genuine question, why do you prefer using cash instead of using a phone or card?
I do this especially when it’s dark outside and I have to go out to shop, this way, I don’t lose anything significant if I get robbed.
Another good reason is that some shops have to pay a fee for being able to accept digital transactions, for some shops, the fee is quite a lot. So paying with cash is preferred and helps them a bit.
Lastly, while it sounds shady, being able to pay in cash keeps me from being traced by the government. I don’t really have anything to hide but having the option to be anonymous If I want feels good.
Not using cash means someone gets a cut of a processing fee. Every time, with almost no exceptions. I’m not down to have rent seeking companies taking a slice of my hard earned money just so I don’t have to manage a few pieces of paper. You’re generally paying 3-4 percent of every transaction now, as that’s pretty standard for debit cards on businesses, and it doesn’t matter if it’s charged to the card holder or the…
Haha, Americans with their 2-4% transaction tax, it’s so funny. No seriously, when I first moved to the Netherlands I was wondering what kind of backwards country wouldn’t let me use a credit card at the grocery store. And that’s when I learned about how crazy it is that credit cards and even American debit cards have such needlessly high transaction fees.
I believe once we go fully cashless, we'll regret it and wish we could go back. I can barely enjoy a full day without being required to bring my phone / debit card with me because the register does not accept cash.
I can barely enjoy a full day without being required to bring cash because the vendor does not accept card. (Not actually true since basically everyone accepts card in the UK, but it illustrates that your point makes no sense.)
So you tried to prove me wrong by giving a made up example?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work in a bank and cash handling is a major headache in terms of internal control, logistics, reconciliation and AML. It's a large extra cost. It is much cheaper for the bank and customers to use cards, but where I live the banks own a payment network that does not involve visa and mastercard so the cost is much lower and there is no rent seeking so card use have no fees. We also have an app for sending "cash" for…
The issue is, whilst I’m sure that cards are cheaper overall, they present a serious burden for people who can’t use them: unbanked people for various reasons, older people, children etc.
And derisking is illegal, so you have to provide a bank account and cards to anyone who wants. The high risk customers just need more follow-up on terms of AML.