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posted by janrinok on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the bills-have-serial-numbers-so-only-use-change dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Many Austrians value their privacy and won't accept someone to keep track how many beers they drink. It may sound like a strange thing to enshrine in a country’s constitution: the right to pay cash. But a debate on whether to do just that has entered Austria’s election campaign, shining a light on the country’s love of cold, hard currency.

The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP, EPP-affiliated) recently made the suggestion as part of its campaign for a parliamentary election in late September, for which it has a commanding poll lead. This led to other parties — though sceptical of the ÖVP’s proposal — vaunting their commitment to protecting cash, with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPÖ) demanding an end to fees levied at cashpoints.

And it is not hard to see why all major parties see protecting cash as a vote-winner.

“In Austria, attitudes change slowly,” an employee of Weinschenke, a burger restaurant in downtown Vienna, told AFP. The woman in her 30s, who only gave her name as Victoria, says she prefers to use cash because “you don’t leave a trace”.

Financial law expert Werner Doralt says Austrians put a high value on privacy and are wary of anything that could be used to keep tabs on them, such as card transactions. “If for example I go shopping, and it’s recorded exactly how much schnapps I’ve bought, that’s an invasion of my privacy,” he says.

A recent survey conducted by the ING bank in 13 European countries, Australia and the US, showed Austrians were the most resistant to the idea of giving up cash payments.

Just 10 percent of those surveyed in Austria said they could imagine doing without cash, compared to a European average of 22%. According to European Central Bank data compiled in 2017, cash accounted for 67% of money spent at points of sale in Austria, compared to just 27% in the Netherlands. Even in neighbouring Germany, another country known for its attachment to cash, the rate is only 55%.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 05 2019, @09:19PM (3 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday September 05 2019, @09:19PM (#890249)

    If Brussels commands that all payments must be tracked Austria will have had a hand in making that decision because they are an EU member.

    The UK is not regaining sovereignty with Brexit. The clue is in how Rupert Murdoch spent tens of millions of his own money to help push Brexit along. Do you think he did that out of concern for the ordinary Briton?

    The other clue is in how the pro-Brexit crew lied and lied during the campaign, and now cannot even agree on what they meant by Brexit.

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  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @11:00PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @11:00PM (#890281)

    If Brussels commands that all payments must be tracked Austria will have had a hand in making that decision because they are an EU member.

    They will not. Not the government of Austria, sure as hell not the Austrian people. It will be a committee of appointed people in Brussels, which may or may not contain Austrians.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday September 06 2019, @01:57AM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Friday September 06 2019, @01:57AM (#890345)

      That is not how the EU works, despite what Fox News tells you.

  • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday September 06 2019, @03:03AM

    by deimtee (3272) on Friday September 06 2019, @03:03AM (#890368) Journal

    The UK is not regaining sovereignty with Brexit. The clue is in how Rupert Murdoch spent tens of millions of his own money to help push Brexit along. Do you think he did that out of concern for the ordinary Briton?

    No, I think he runs a content-hungry media empire and had a pretty shrewd idea how much content he could create with never-ending stories from both sides. He probably made those millions back multiple times over just accepting ads from pro- and anti- brexit groups. He may be an evil immoral arsehole, but he is a long way from stupid.

    --
    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.