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Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

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Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#151

Post by hocuspocus »

telesilla wrote: post #126
hocuspocus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived two years in Germany and hung out with lots of foreigners. Not only tech employees with high and steady incomes, but also freelancers or people on working holiday visas, working part-time at bars and restaurants. Between big commercial banks and savings banks, online banks (comdirect, ING, DKB, ...) and challengers like N26, I've never met anyone who had trouble opening a bank account. Americans didn't hav…

>challengers like N26 Don't you need a bank account to transfer money into N26? As far as I know there is no way to deposit cash into any of these disrupter service providers.

I can live with that. The last time I had to deposit cash at a bank was 20 years ago after a summer job.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#152

Post by Mirioron »

beefield wrote: post #138
codr7 wrote: post #66

I recently moved back to Sweden after living 4 years in Germany. I don't have any cards, and I don't carry a "smart"phone anymore; in Germany this didn't cause any trouble at all and I was far from alone. Much of the current Swedish society is currently closed to me, I know of three shops and one cafe in the (200k people) city center that accept cash. Some of it has been gradual but it changed dramatically during the…

> It's all very convenient until the crap hits the fan I have difficulties imagining the crap hitting fan that simultaneously breaks down electronic payment systems but rather miraculously keeps the purchasing power of paper money intact for any extended time. Could you maybe elaborate why you consider this specific scenario likely enough to worry about?

The crap hitting the fan scenario is when people are barred from payment because of something non-illegal that they did. It's a third-party payment service, so it's possible.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#153

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #105
codr7 wrote: post #66

I recently moved back to Sweden after living 4 years in Germany. I don't have any cards, and I don't carry a "smart"phone anymore; in Germany this didn't cause any trouble at all and I was far from alone. Much of the current Swedish society is currently closed to me, I know of three shops and one cafe in the (200k people) city center that accept cash. Some of it has been gradual but it changed dramatically during the…

I've lived in Sweden for nearly 10 years, and the whole cashless aspect is really something I've embraced. Cashless payments dominated even 10 years ago, but I've also seen a massive change in the past 2-3 years with places no longer accepting cash. Grocery shops still do, but most restaurants, takeout places and cafes are cashless. On the contrary, I find myself irritated in Germany where cash is required. The main…

> The main thing I want to see is stronger privacy laws regarding transactions. There's some hope here with the EU.

There is some hope here ... that there will be new rules to ignore?

Like, how do you think such rules could ever be enforced effectively and in a way that the public can actually trust that it is being enforced effectively (to avoid chilling effects)? Plus, how do such rules prevent data leaks due to security problems?

It's like you want to build a system that is maximally vulnerable to abuses and then just declare that using those vulnerabilities is theoretically not allowed instead of using the technology that we know reliably preevents all those problems. How isn't that completely naive at best? Next we'll remove all authentication from IT systems and just make it illegal to log into systems without authorization? How well do you think that would work?

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#154

Post by hocuspocus »

mchaver wrote: post #127
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.

One thing that has always seemed strange to me is you have to prove you have an address to access many parts of society like banks and schools. This leaves out the homeless and people who have a residency but for some reason (bad landlord, staying at a friend’s place and not on the lease, etc.) can’t prove it in a way that satisfies the authorities.

I've never seen a school ask for proof of address in Europe.

As for banks, it depends a lot on the country. While it's an issue for the homeless, it shouldn't be for people who're staying at some temporary accommodation. For instance in Germany, where most banks ask for proof of address (the registration at your municipality), it's also trivial get a valid document from whoever is hosting you (landlord or main tenant, it doesn't matter, you don't have to be on the lease).

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#155

Post by Mirioron »

username90 wrote: post #35
jussij wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Minimum wage in Bulgaria (part of the EU) is €3,743 per year. Now imagine someone that's not full-time employed. €20 for them is not nothing. For them that would be the equivalent of someone earning $100k a year having to pay $500 to have a bank account. Note that often these low income accounts also have to pay when doing (some) transactions.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#156

Post by [deleted] »

Mirioron wrote: post #150
johnlorentzson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tickets have no way of identifying you unless you register on their website. You could always just get rid of your card and get a new one when you want to.

They can't identify you, provided that they don't pair that data up with anything else. Eg just a few trips where you didn't turn your phone location off on the bus would be enough to know which card is yours. Even if you turn your location off every other time it wouldn't matter. Or your phone service provider can do that even with your location set to off. Don't the plastic cards cost extra?

[deleted]

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#157

Post by hocuspocus »

rags2riches wrote: post #136
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.

But they can refuse to take your cash and point to the regulations against money laundering.

If you're poor, you aren't going to deposit cash in amounts that are anywhere close to what a bank should consider suspicious.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#158

Post by Freak_NL »

kzrdude wrote: post #94
codr7 wrote: post #66

I recently moved back to Sweden after living 4 years in Germany. I don't have any cards, and I don't carry a "smart"phone anymore; in Germany this didn't cause any trouble at all and I was far from alone. Much of the current Swedish society is currently closed to me, I know of three shops and one cafe in the (200k people) city center that accept cash. Some of it has been gradual but it changed dramatically during the…

There are real problems, too. One day Swedbank had an outage on their payment systems for more than 24 hours, and this is a bank that has a significant part of the country as customers (I'm just guessing, but it's above 10% for sure). People couldn't pay for anything, couldn't buy train tickets (all digital). The outage was so big that the train companies had to let commuters go without tickets, so at least those peo…

This is what really irks me here in the Netherlands too. I'm fine with digital payments (e.g., contactless debit cards) for the bulk of transactions, but cash should be guarded as a valid alternative.

The past year I've several times been in a store where digital transactions didn't work for one reason or another (telephone line got cut by roadworks, internet modem crashed, etc.). Fine, I'll just pay with cash in the mean time. Not so for 80% of the other customers: some rush to the in-store ATM, some just give up because they can't be arsed to carry even a single €50 note around.

One problem is that our governments like the idea of eventually banning cash.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#159

Post by fipar »

beefield wrote: post #138
codr7 wrote: post #66

I recently moved back to Sweden after living 4 years in Germany. I don't have any cards, and I don't carry a "smart"phone anymore; in Germany this didn't cause any trouble at all and I was far from alone. Much of the current Swedish society is currently closed to me, I know of three shops and one cafe in the (200k people) city center that accept cash. Some of it has been gradual but it changed dramatically during the…

> It's all very convenient until the crap hits the fan I have difficulties imagining the crap hitting fan that simultaneously breaks down electronic payment systems but rather miraculously keeps the purchasing power of paper money intact for any extended time. Could you maybe elaborate why you consider this specific scenario likely enough to worry about?

You may be reading "crap hits the fan" as something massive, like a collapse of the banking system.

I'm not the OP, but I can also read it as "crap hits the fan for me", and this makes it simple to imagine ways in which a person can lose access to digital payment (by theft, by being blocked by the bank for whatever reason, etc.) and if this happens, life would be difficult on a cash-less society until this access is regained.

Just imagine if you're accidentally identified as a financial supporter of terrorism or something like that, and your bank accounts are blocked. How would you buy even basic necessities if cash is not allowed?

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#160

Post by beefield »

Mirioron wrote: post #152
beefield wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's all very convenient until the crap hits the fan I have difficulties imagining the crap hitting fan that simultaneously breaks down electronic payment systems but rather miraculously keeps the purchasing power of paper money intact for any extended time. Could you maybe elaborate why you consider this specific scenario likely enough to worry about?

The crap hitting the fan scenario is when people are barred from payment because of something non-illegal that they did. It's a third-party payment service, so it's possible.

Maybe I am naive[1], but I have difficulties seeing that happening in the EU. I mean, that we would have significant amount of merchants accepting only payment systems that are not available to everyone. Of course, if someone has evidence of (a possibility of) opposite, I am keen to educate myself.

[1] However, given everything I know (which is not much) about US financial system, I do understand that people there worry about things like this

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