SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the i-bet-the-last-$10-in-my-wallet dept.
The New York Times is reporting that Sweden is getting close to eliminating cash as a method of payment:
Parishioners text tithes to their churches. Homeless street vendors carry mobile credit-card readers. Even the Abba Museum, despite being a shrine to the 1970s pop group that wrote "Money, Money, Money," considers cash so last-century that it does not accept bills and coins.
Few places are tilting toward a cashless future as quickly as Sweden, which has become hooked on the convenience of paying by app and plastic.
This tech-forward country, home to the music streaming service Spotify and the maker of the Candy Crush mobile games, has been lured by the innovations that make digital payments easier. It is also a practical matter, as many of the country's banks no longer accept or dispense cash. [...]
Bills and coins now represent just 2 percent of Sweden's economy, compared with 7.7 percent in the United States and 10 percent in the euro area.
But, as anyone with a brain can predict:
Not everyone is cheering. Sweden's embrace of electronic payments has alarmed consumer organizations and critics who warn of a rising threat to privacy and increased vulnerability to sophisticated Internet crimes. Last year, the number of electronic fraud cases surged to 140,000, more than double the amount a decade ago, according to Sweden's Ministry of Justice.
My take: With cash, identify theft and credit card fraud becomes more difficult. But more importantly, I like the anonymity of cash. It lets those of us who pay too much in taxes cheat on sales tax by buying expensive things in a tax-free state when we visit. I also like using cash to tip underpaid servers at restaurants so they don't have to report that portion of their gratuity. But there is a civil liberties element to it as well. The government has no business knowing or being able to know where I spend my money or how much I spend.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Sunday December 27 2015, @01:56PM
This is a bad development, for too many reasons to type here, but I will list some. Sorry for the length, it would have been even longer if I went into full detail :-)
1. As mentioned, the loss of anonymity is quite something. It doesn't have to be due to tax avoidance reasons, some people may not want others to know they have been shopping at adult stores, or how often they buy certain medicines, which causes they donate to, etc... People have a right to not be tracked all the time. They are not cattle, they are sovereign beings with rights.
2. Security, a hackers heaven, etc.... Also mentioned in TFS.
3. Bugs. Once on new year there was a bug in my banks year end batch processing code. The bug rendered all accounts frozen. As a result an hour before new year, I was stuck in a petrol station unable to pay for fuel I put in the tank, because my cards would not work. I sat there for more than an hour until the people caved in, and I gave them an IOU to pay when my card works again. Waste of my time, missed the new year, and arrived to the party late. If I had cash, it would have been no problem.
4. Budgeting. I used to be completely cash free. However I had trouble reining in my spending. I would just compulsively buy stuff, and use my card. Hell, when contactless came into being it was even more convenient to spend your money without thinking. Every month I would get my statement, and then would wonder where all my money went. Have to go through so many small transactions, usually with unhelpful descriptions, and try to remember what it was, or if it was even me. Someone who cloned my card could probably take 10-50 euros out of of my account every month and I would not be sure enough of the transactions to challange the bank about it.
To solve the above, I went full 180. I am now 100% Cash only. I take out 150 euros a week, on Monday, and I know exactly how much I spend. I am also aware of the money. It isn't just digits changing in a far away account, I see my cash reduce as the week goes on. It makes me think frugally, and not just spend money frivolously. It also really cleaned up my statement. I now get a simple statement with 4-5 entries, stating the cash. Any other entries are automatically suspect. Yes, I don't have an itemised breakdown of what I spent the money on, but truth be told I couldn't find that out before, and I don't really care. As long as I gave it a thought when I was buying it (which with cash, I would), it didn't matter shortly after.
Really going cash only was the best thing I ever did, and helped me get control of my finances and reduced my management overhead. It also altered my attitude to money, so I ended up saving so much, that I could buy a nice car and place a deposit on a flat.
However there are other, more general things I would like to draw you attention to:
3. Money in the bank is not your money anymore. Any money you deposit in a bank in an unsecured loan to that bank. That means that your account holds how much money your bank promises to pay you on request. It can deny that request, or it may just say it will pay you half. This has already happened, look at Cyrprus, and Greece, where banks basically took a percentage out of your account, not to mention bank holidays, and limiting or denying withdrawls completely.
Cash is yours, yes it can be inflated away by governments printing, but that is a long slow process. You can't just wake up one day and find your money unavailable (hyperinflaction a-la weimar Germany nonwithstanding, but those are abnormal societal conditions).
4. Money that is not in your hands is not in your control. Therefore it is the control of someone else, who can deny you access. This can be the bank as in point 3, or the goverment can order your accounts frozen because they saw you at some protest march they disapprove of. In a cashless society that would be a death sentence. With cash, you would still have somewhere to turn to, even if it to do small jobs for cash only. It would be something to survive on.
5. There is talk in the EU of imposing negative interest rates. The financial crisis is reaching a point where even zero interest rate policies are not having the desired effect. As long as 100 euros in the bank is equivalent to 100 euro in cash, people will generally keep it in the account. It is seen as safer, more convenient, etc... by them. However if the government set negative interest rates, and people found that they money in their money would decrease every month just by sitting there (you are essentially paying the bank for the privilege of lending them money), they would preserve their wealth by taking cash out of the banks and stuffing it under their mattresses. This would cause a bank run and possibly a collapseof banks.
That is why governments don't just help themselves to the money in your accounts. However in a cashless society people would have no recourse. The government can take as much as they want a month, and it would be very much a case of "Use it or lose it" for people. They can't just take it out and stick under the matress. I suspect this, and the ability to track/control people via cutting off their ability to function , is the main reasons governments are pushing so much for cashless societies.
Also, the above would not really help stop bribes/criminals/terrorism/tax avoidence/boogeyman du jour. The underground would just switch to something else. I would imagine first they would switch to foreign currency that is still paper based (USD/YUANS/GBP/RUBLES/whatever). I doubt the whole would will switch to cashless anytime soon. After that they can switch to diamonds, gold/silver coins, rare artworks, classic cars, anything that has an agreed value and can be bartered.
This would really affect the law abiding public, in the lower/middle rungs. It is a large power grab disguised as a benefit for the targets. So much would be lost in freedom, privacy, security and control over ones on life, that I can only imagine ignorant or stupid people would wish for such a future.
That Sweden is at the forefront of this push doesn't surprise me. Went there a year or so ago, lovely place on the surface, but probably the most messed up place on earth. Definitely the most messed up place I have ever visited. Could never imagine living there, I think I would find it hell. Thank god Finland is next door, to inject some (in)sanity into the area. I guess this means in future I won't be visiting Sweden either, unless they allow cash for tourists, but that is no big loss. I just hope the cashless trend doesn't spread further.