Swedes turn against cashlessness • Hacker News Board

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#311

Post by mcv » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:52 AM UTC

arghwhat wrote: post #263

powvans wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bitcoin failure (I think it is) teaches something. People don't really give each other money. It's kind of illegal. Money is supposed to move between people and companies or companies and companies, not between people. There is no demand for Peter-pays-Paul. That last bit, that's a profound observation. There is some real demand, but not much. More so there is theoretical demand. In theory I want the option to pa…

As mentioned elsewhere, "Peter-pays-Paul" is huge in Scandinavia. MobilePay, a person-to-person payment app in Denmark, is a huge deal here. It had 3 million users in 2016 (out of 7 million people!), and its second-priority shop payment feature (that arrived much later) is challenging credit cards. It's used for everything from selling used goods to splitting bills. Swish, the Swedish equivalent, has 4 million users.…

Tikkie, a Dutch equivalent, has 2 million users. Not as much as the Scandinavian countries (considering a 17 million population here), but that could be because some banks also have their own system. (Tikkie works with all banks and uses iDeal. Requests can be sent over whatsapp and similar systems.)

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#312

Post by mcv » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:55 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #251

jamesblonde wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a verb in swedish for this: "I'll swish you 50 crowns" "Can you swish me 200?"

In Denmark "I'll MobilePay you 50 crowns" or "can you MobilePay me 200?", at least when speaking English. My Danish isn't good enough to reliably say what it is when speaking Danish. Probably something like "Jeg mobilepayer dig halvtres¹ kroner" The system in Britain (Paym) hasn't really caught on. They might be less keen to verb a noun. ¹ This is why I avoid discussing numbers in Danish.

In Dutch, you send someone a Tikkie, which is a payment request. We haven't verbed it as far as I can tell.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#313

Post by mcv » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:57 AM UTC

arghwhat wrote: post #254

reaperducer wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it's free in the EU, then you'll have a point. Until then you're not addressing his argument.

In DK, card processing fees must not be passed to the customer. It's supposed to handle the problem, but we all know that the companies just increase prices to compensate.

In Netherland, you sometimes get an extra 2% charge when paying with credit card. The customer gets the choice: pay the extra costs associated with credit cards, or use a better payment system. Most use something better. Credit cards are mostly for online purchases abroad and for tourists.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#314

Post by Fnoord » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC

germanier wrote: post #190

mkesper wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in Germany, for example. We still have laws that cash has to be accepted for (almost) any trade.

It should be noted that it can be contractually waived in most cases, e.g. by a poster saying "no cash accepted" in a store. And it's not like this law is actually enforced as anyone who has ever tried paying with cash at Berlin's city administration can attest to. If not even they obverse they law I wouldn't put much value into it.

> It should be noted that it can be contractually waived in most cases, e.g. by a poster saying "no cash accepted" in a store.

Exactly how it works in The Netherlands as well.

Source: I worked in a coffeeshop, and got fed up with all the customers who wanted to pay by card which we did not accept (at that time) so consulted a lawyer on how to deal with this. It has to be communicated clearly, though I don't remember if it was at entrance or at the counter (IIRC the latter).

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#315

Post by laacz » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

Isn't premise of the article that the problem is centralisation of cashless system, not cashlessnes itself?

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#316

Post by Broken_Hippo » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

uggedal wrote: post #258

Symbiote wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Denmark "I'll MobilePay you 50 crowns" or "can you MobilePay me 200?", at least when speaking English. My Danish isn't good enough to reliably say what it is when speaking Danish. Probably something like "Jeg mobilepayer dig halvtres¹ kroner" The system in Britain (Paym) hasn't really caught on. They might be less keen to verb a noun. ¹ This is why I avoid discussing numbers in Danish.

In Norway it's "I'll vipps you 50 crowns" or "jeg vippser deg 50 kroner". The verb is actually in the Norwegian dictionary now.

Thanks. This adds to my Norwegian vocabulary :) Not that this is very useful to me right now, but who knows, that bit might change.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#317

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

iamatworknow wrote: post #164

EarthMephit wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smaller resturants prefer cash, because it allows them to evade taxes by underquoting their profits. The same reason that builders quote less for "cash only" prices This is one of the main reasons that governments are pushing for cashless systems, because there is less evetax evasion and increased revenue

Along those same lines if I'm going out to eat somewhere that accepts credit cards I will almost always pay the bill with the card and tip the server in cash. They can just pocket the cash and as far as the restaurant knows they didn't receive a tip (that would otherwise be taxed).

Why do you think restaurant servers shouldn't pay taxes? Are there any other occupations for which you believe should be exempt from taxes?

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#318

Post by kungtotte » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

StudentStuff wrote: post #284

Annorax wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swish is 1 to 2 SEK (2 being the list price that can be negotiated) per transaction. Then swish has a daily cap of payments you as user can do of 150k SEK (system limit, not a soft cap that the user can remove).

That is an extremely low limit for any noteworthy business, equating to $500k USD a month total. Most small grocers here in Seattle do more than that in credit/debit monthly.

The Swish limit is for outbound payments, not total transactions.

So a grocer that accepts Swish payments will in no way be hindered by this limit, unless they for some ungodly reason are also swishing money back to customers.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#319

Post by walshemj » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

skrause wrote: post #192

dalbasal wrote: post #173

Good. The cashless drive gives me the creeps. 1 - First, I like cash. It's tactile and gives me a feel for my spending. 2 - Cards are an duopoly, layered onto an oligopoly. Cashless gives this system a 2% tax on all spending (+ fraud, which retailers pay for). 3 - Government control is creepy too. Liberty reasons, privacy reasons, single-point-of failure reasons. Just simple competency reasons. 4 - It advantages big…

> 2 - Cards are an duopoly, layered onto an oligopoly. Cashless gives this system a 2% tax on all spending (+ fraud, which retailers pay for). Not in the European Union where this fee is capped to 0,3%.

Which was supposed to benefit the "citizens" but it did not it cost me about £20 a month due to lost cash back - all the benefits where taken by big business.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#320

Post by sokoloff » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #310

sitharus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cashless transactions don’t have to go through the card networks. Here in New Zealand around 2/3rds of all retail transactions are done via cards because many years ago the reserve bank mandated free inter-bank transactions. This means direct bank-to-bank transactions via the local EFTPOS network are free for both parties (with exceptions for some low-use plans, and businesses typically rent the terminals). Also the…

There are only 4 things that I still pay with cash: my cleaner, my cheese shop (who refuses to get a pin machine, the luddite), my son's allowance, and money for street performers and beggars. The only thing for which I use credit cards are online purchases from foreign websites that don't support iDeal. Everything else is through regular bank transactions, either through pin card, direct transactions, or iDeal. All…

Can you share the reasons why it's vastly superior to credit cards?

Using my card, I get good post-purchase protection (via threat of chargeback or card issuer-provided warranty increase) and excellent fraud protection.