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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: 2) by lentilla on Sunday July 22 2018, @03:47AM
You are absolutely correct that there is a cost to handling cash - mostly because it it's a very attractive target for sticky fingers, slight-of-hand and plain robbery. That cost simply doesn't exist with "electronic banking". There are indeed associated handling costs - but they are orders of magnitude smaller.
Retail banking (from a bank's perspective) is all about mortgages, credit cards and image. That's all they should care about. Nickel-and-diming by charging for basic transactions is a sure way to lose those big sales. Win the battle, lose the war.
A smart retail bank will keep their customers happy and transacting. In a way, cheap retail transactional banking is a loss-leader - except that the cost of providing "free" transactions is effectively zero. So banks get to provide a public service where it is needed - and get the juicy mortgage and credit card accounts as a reward.
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And... the reason we have to keep using cash has little to do with banks, and everything to do with ensuring our governments don't slide into totalitarianism.