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More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

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Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#31

Post by Symbiote »

Pamar wrote: post #26
plesner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. People pay by cash all the time in Denmark. I happened to read this in line at a Danish supermarket and people were paying with cash as much as with cards while I was paying attention.

Visited Denmark twice in 2015 and I can testify that using cash was perfectly normal.

Cash was 40% of transactions, 25% of total value in 2012. [1]

Since then, to July 2015, there's been a 25% increase in card payments, but only a 12% increase in total value [2], so smaller things must be being paid for by card.

Contactless cards were only introduced in Denmark in 2015, and payment by mobile phone in 2013 [3].

So yes, it's normal. But it's not the most common form of payment, and I've been asked by a guy selling sausages from a wagon to use a card when I offered cash.

[1] http://www.cfir.dk/Arrangementer/andrecfirarrangementer/frem...

[2] https://www.nationalbanken.dk/en/bankingandpayments/danish_p...

[3] http://www.mobilepay.dk/da-dk/pages/The-story-in-English.asp...

Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#32

Post by dragonwriter »

frik wrote: post #4

Cash is freedom. No one spies on what you do with your cash money. Hopefully this electronic-only-money utopia won't get traction. We can see already with the encryption trojan programs that ask for Bitcoins/altcoins to decrypt your data - something like that wouldn't be reasonable and work on a large scale with cash.

People -- the government specifically -- does, indeed, monitor some things you do with your "cash money", including treating merely travelling with a large quantity of it as something inherently suspicious.

Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#33

Post by Mankhool »

cup wrote: post #18

I know the minister for Telecommunications in Somalia. I asked him to do an AMA on hackernews but there was no interest.

I'm very interested in finding out how to pay people in the third world as well as others with no bank account (10% of Americans don't have one). Please see if he will answer questions. I want to know how it works, how widespread it is in Africa, if they are rolling it out in other countries etc.

Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#34

Post by MrMullen »

frik wrote: post #11
Symbiote wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“People are doing business without any fear of losing cash to militants or conmen,” Aden said. “The country’s telecommunications sector has undergone a rapid rise, fueled by intense competition amongst the numerous telecommunication firms that dominate the country.” Cash is freedom to be robbed, so I don't think that will convince anyone in Somalia. I checked my bank statement this morning. I withdrew DKK 300 ($45) o…

Are you reply to me? I was talking about cash in general, and for your information why I care: certain parties want to limit cash or forbid cash in US and Europe. One can only robe you the cash you have with you, and no one has all his money with him, right? But if the same guy also robes you the credit card or debit card or smartphone with contact-less payment setup, they can take all your money, or multiple times m…

No, this article is about near cashless society that are not in Europe but in Africa.

I think you lack an understanding how cashless transactions work in Somalia. First off, no one is using a credit card in Somalia. They don't work, no one has them. Two, the article made it very clear, carrying cash is a big problem in Somalia due to crime. How contactless payments work on phones in Somalia and M-Pesa is that you have to have a code to access the funds on the phone. If someone robbed you and they get your phone, they still don't have access to your funds. You can simply go to the phone store (Or whatever they have in Somalia) and get a new SIM for your account and then have access to your funds.

I imagine that carrying cash in Somalia is extremely dangerous and well worth the "Big Brother" factor.

Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#35

Post by jsprogrammer »

mschuster91 wrote: post #30
Osiris wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some states do have laws that explicitly allow and/or regular marijuana for medicinal or recreational use. For example, I live in Colorado where a constitutional amendment was passed that required law makers to pass laws to setup regulations for the production, wholesale, and retail sale of the drug. The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can…

> The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal law. But the FBI can very well decide to prosecute federal crimes in states, even if the "crime" is legal under state law.

And a jury can decide that no crime was committed.

Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#36

Post by plesner »

Symbiote wrote: post #31
Pamar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visited Denmark twice in 2015 and I can testify that using cash was perfectly normal.

Cash was 40% of transactions, 25% of total value in 2012. [1] Since then, to July 2015, there's been a 25% increase in card payments, but only a 12% increase in total value [2], so smaller things must be being paid for by card. Contactless cards were only introduced in Denmark in 2015, and payment by mobile phone in 2013 [3]. So yes, it's normal. But it's not the most common form of payment, and I've been asked by a…

No question, we're quickly moving away from physical Kroner. There's also political and especially business pressure to get rid of them. However, it's not true that they're obsolete or somehow similar to new yen.

I think it's a point worth emphasizing because going cashless is a huge decision, especially the way we're moving towards in Denmark. There's a discussion to be had around it and if we just accept that it's inevitable or has already happened then that kills that discussion before it's even taken place.

Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#37

Post by pyre »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #35
mschuster91 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal law. But the FBI can very well decide to prosecute federal crimes in states, even if the "crime" is legal under state law.

And a jury can decide that no crime was committed.

But this would have to be jury nullification because legally a crime was committed.

Re: More phones, few banks, instability are transforming Somalia to cashless society

#39

Post by mschuster91 »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #35
mschuster91 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal law. But the FBI can very well decide to prosecute federal crimes in states, even if the "crime" is legal under state law.

And a jury can decide that no crime was committed.

For this there needs to be a jury trial, which is unlikely to happen if police / DA pushes for a plea bargain...
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