Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
All over the western world banks are shutting down cash machines and branches. They are trying to push you into using their digital payments and digital banking infrastructure. Just like Google wants everyone to access and navigate the broader internet via its privately controlled search portal, so financial institutions want everyone to access and navigate the broader economy through their systems.
Another aim is to cut costs in order to boost profits. Branches require staff. Replacing them with standardised self-service apps allows the senior managers of financial institutions to directly control and monitor interactions with customers.
Banks, of course, tell us a different story about why they do this. I recently got a letter from my bank telling me that they are shutting down local branches because "customers are turning to digital", and they are thus "responding to changing customer preferences". I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches.
Source: The cashless society is a con – and big finance is behind it
(Score: 5, Insightful) by leftover on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:16PM
Bankers speak of "disintermediation" i.e. the threat of any commercial transaction occurring without somebody paying them a fee, as a great injustice that needs to be corrected. This, even more than the handling costs, is what they have against cash. Peer-to-peer electronic cash similarly cuts them out of the loop so it is relentlessly opposed.
Apologies if TFA mentions this. Didn't read it due to concerns about my blood pressure.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.