Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies • Hacker News Board

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#41

Post by threedaymonk » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 10:34 PM UTC

newaccountfool wrote: post #18

Numberwang wrote: post #5

This was a bit of a surprise for me when I moved to Ireland and later the UK two years ago. In Sweden I wouldn't use bills and coins sometimes for months. Suddenly I have had to get used to carrying these around again, and having to pay fees when you pay with cards etc. I'm looking forward for the world to go cashless, and think this will happen very fast.

What fees do you have to pay in the UK when using a card?

As a customer, there aren't many circumstances. The only one that springs to mind is when buying airline tickets with a credit card (but not a debit card).

Where it makes more of a difference, though, is that the fee charged to the merchant is a sufficient disincentive that it's pretty common for small shops and bars to refuse card payments under £10. This is even true of the new(ish) contactless payments that only work up to £20 and which were touted as replacing cash.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#42

Post by lobster_johnson » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 10:42 PM UTC

MrJagil wrote: post #3

"while some unemployed people selling street magazines now also accept electronic payments." This was hard to grasp when I saw it IRL for the first time. My local candy store and deli[0] both accept Mobile Pay and it's a strange thing to witness. Imagine the NYC delis, usually owned by immigrants and minorities who couldn't care less, suddenly be on the frontier of adoption of a cashless system. It's that user friend…

In the US, Square [1] seems very popular among small stores, like coffee shops and, yes, candy stores. Seems like it's great for low-volume stuff. A few days ago I was buying a piece of vintage furniture from a private seller via Krrb.com, and when I showed up, she said I could pay with either PayPal, Square or Venmo.

[1] https://squareup.com

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#43

Post by larsmak » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 10:44 PM UTC

Numberwang wrote: post #5

This was a bit of a surprise for me when I moved to Ireland and later the UK two years ago. In Sweden I wouldn't use bills and coins sometimes for months. Suddenly I have had to get used to carrying these around again, and having to pay fees when you pay with cards etc. I'm looking forward for the world to go cashless, and think this will happen very fast.

I'm from Norway and I had the same experience when visiting Berlin last year - having to take out euro-bills from the ATM. Here in Norway I never carry any actual money - I only ever take out money to pay my foreign hair-dresser which cuts my hair for a low rate. I suspect he does not have a credit-card machine so he can avoid some taxes. I even pay for coffey and other cheap stuff with my card. They say we will go completely cash-less by 2020 - can't wait.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#44

Post by hga » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 10:50 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #33

hga wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I use cash for everything I can, checks when I can't (local payments), and credit cards only for purchases over the web, where it can't be easily avoided, and one does need, in the US at least, to maintain a credit record. This is primarily to avoid fraud with stolen info, and secondly that mild paranoia we share. If I had a Pocky addiction, no one would know outside my family ^_^.

Why checks for non-cash local payments? They aren't really much better than credit cards for privacy, are they? They also come with some significant risks [1]. [1] http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/news08.html

There are certainly risks, but these are to vendors I consider to be reliable, e.g. doctors ... and they're really expecting checks (many more "vendors" directly draw from one of my checking accounts). I also have more trust in my banks than Knuth seems to have ... and I indeed keep a fairly low amount of cash in those checking accounts.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#45

Post by sitharus » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC

Here in New Zealand over 60% of retail payments are done using cards, especially as the local EFTPOS system is very low fee compared to credit card. I can't recall the last time I had to use cash. There's still a few small cash-only vendors, but mostly those without a fixed location as mobile EFTPOS terminals cost more to run.

It's very convenient, there's no need to keep receipts to record my spending. No cheques means no chequebook to balance. Of course it does make spending more traceable but given the police need a court order to get banking records I'm not too worried currently. Vendors can track you using the number if their POS records it, but it's hard to get a POS approved so most people use a sealed terminal with a serial interface to connect to the POS.

Cash isn't going away any time soon, but it's just a pain to carry around.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#46

Post by Squarel » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 11:00 PM UTC

gst wrote: post #21

newaccountfool wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to pay for a Debit Card? What's the reason for this?

You pay for debit and credit cards in most European countries. One reason is probably that the fees paid by the merchants for card processing are much lower than in the US. So while a bank in the US is happy to give you a free credit card in the US, because it knows that it gets the money back via the fees paid from the merchants, a bank in Europe won't be able to break even with that approach.

I am in Denmark, and pay 0 fees for my debit card.

Seeing as I am a Masters student, so living on the student payments we get here, and my partner is unemployed, if I had fees, I would not use it.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#47

Post by Squarel » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 11:00 PM UTC

MrJagil wrote: post #3

"while some unemployed people selling street magazines now also accept electronic payments." This was hard to grasp when I saw it IRL for the first time. My local candy store and deli[0] both accept Mobile Pay and it's a strange thing to witness. Imagine the NYC delis, usually owned by immigrants and minorities who couldn't care less, suddenly be on the frontier of adoption of a cashless system. It's that user friend…

Tak.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#48

Post by Squarel » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 11:04 PM UTC

newaccountfool wrote: post #20

Kiro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not true. Everyone can get a debit card which deducts from your bank account without any fees and is accepted everywhere.

Comments below state other wise.

And comments both above and below state that they pay 0 annual fees or fees per transaction (i.e., whilst the merchant may have a Dankort fee, and passes it on to ALL consumers, the number that I pay at the checkout is the same whether I pay cash, debit or credit card)

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#49

Post by innguest » Sat, Jan 10, 2015, 11:37 PM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #34

Kenji wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they are not allowed to pass the cost on to the consumer" Haha, that's funny. The merchant's whole income is from the customer, there's no way not to pass it on to the customer, just to conceal better the fact that they're passing it on.

obviously they pass the cost on to the customer, but not directly. they can't charge one price for cash and a different price for card.

Which means they have to pass the cost on to both kinds of customer.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#50

Post by waps » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 1:54 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #35

silb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true in Norway. Merchants are required by law to report cash purchases over a certain amount to the tax authorities.

The same has been true for cash withdraws from the bank over a certain amount, for decades. "Suspicious" isn't quite the right word, as there are plenty of legitimate reasons. But the cost (reviewing a small number of large withdraws) vs. probability of detection is good.

The scary part is how low that amount is. It's something like 1000 euro/day and 3000 euro/week. There's also a yearly value. It's been going down over time (by a lot, used to be 5000 euro/day only when the euro was introduced).