Sweden Tries to Halt Its March to Total Cashlessness

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-11/sweden-tries-to-halt-total-cashlessness-with-lawmaker-proposal

by leonagano • 8 years ago

148 181 8 years ago

falcon6203• 8 years ago

There's been a quite generally raised awareness of the importance of civil resilience here in Sweden the past two years. The perceived threath of a Russian invasion (or perhaps more likely network-based sabotage) has been the cathalyst of this.

Being a "prepper" has gone from being seen as border-line psychotic behavior to "being a responsibile citizen". As long as you don't go over-board and try to prep for more than 4-7 days lack of electricity/water/food - then you're still seen as suspicious. Small steps.

There was also this campaign just a week or two ago - every household received a leaflet telling them to prepare for any incidents that stop public services:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/21/sweden-distrib...

This stuff used to be standard operating procedure when I grew up in the 70s/80s - all this stuff was printed in the annual phone directories that everyone receieved. After Soviet collapsed we stopped doing it though.

There's also been an unusually large number of outages of networked systems in Sweden the past two years, all over the place. Things like ATC systems, banks, media/cable tv distribution systems. Perhaps the official, public explanations are true (typically some kind of "human error" or "software update problem"). I suspect there's an adversary who is not very shy.

icebraining6• 8 years ago

There's also been an unusually large number of outages (...)

Maybe it's part of the campaign to promote self-reliance, like a vaccine for larger scale outages.

coredog64• 8 years ago

Physical Chaos Monkey. Maybe there is an ex-Netfix engineer in government.

lainga• 8 years ago

How popular has the Norwegian series Okkupert been among Swedes? It seems war is weighing heavily on the mind of all the Scandinavian countries since about 2014 (except for Finland, of course, who have never stopped thinking of it).

falcon6203• 8 years ago

So-so. I watched it. Enjoyed parts. Mostly cringed through it.

But just like the Danish/Swedish Netflix series "The Rain" in a similar genre the writing was painfully bad at times - I think this is what stopped it from being popular.

Svip• 8 years ago

The prospect of war weighs very little in Denmark, for the record. There was quite a shock in Denmark, when Sweden announced its 'war survival guide' a few days ago. There seems to be no indication that the Danish government is going to do the same, or anything similar. The argument being that Denmark is in NATO (Sweden is not).

lovich• 8 years ago

Could be self inflicted like Netflix's chaos monkey. You don't know how resilient your system will be in a time of stress unless you test it out

imartin2k• 8 years ago

I actually bought a couple of huge water bottles and a battery-driven tiny radio recently, so I guess I can confirm what you are describing here. The radio after there was a false alarm of the official emergency siren, followed by news articles that recommended that the best way to learn why the emergency siren is activated, is one of the public service radio channels. I figured, better safe than sorry.

toomanybeersies2• 8 years ago

Everybody, anywhere in the world, should have at least 3 days supply of food and water stored at home for in case of emergency. Ideally, you should have it in a container, along with other emergency supplies such as a first aid kit, a radio, and a flashlight.

It is normal for emergency services or the military to take up to 3 days to get the essentials running again in the case of a natural disaster such as an earthquake.

When I used to live in an earthquake prone city, I always had a bag with a hard hat, gloves, a flashlight, and some other emergency essentials ready to go.

kalleboo3• 8 years ago

I live somewhere that is earthquake-prone, and watched intently when a large earthquake hit a city a couple hours away last year.

Food and water were supplied very quickly. But there were 3-4-hour long queues so you're better off with your own stock. In the following days, what people requested most be sent in as donations were the following "luxuries": toilet paper, diapers, and batteries to charge phones.

gaius2• 8 years ago

Being a "prepper" has gone from being seen as border-line psychotic behavior to "being a responsibile citizen".

My wife and I are outdoorsy types and are probably “prepped” for at least a week with no additional effort just from camping equipment and supplies...

paul7986• 8 years ago

Sounds good to me. I use cash a few times a year.. mostly to pay older people in my family.

I recently got rid of the need to have a wallet. Just carry a few cards in a wallet phone case and use Apple Pay about 50% of the time.

MisterTea• 8 years ago

Good citizen. Now sit back while we mine all of your purchases for suspicious data in which to hang you with.

teekert• 8 years ago

Here in the Netherlanda everybody is rapidly switching to iDeal based payment request for such uses. Fintech companies like bunq were amongst the first to offer this (with traditional banks rapidly copying): I can share a link that opens in your banking app, apply finger to fingerprint reader, done. I can also generate a qr code for you to scan or share said link with a group and they can all pay me. Transfer is instant and I get a notification, in these respects it's quite like bitcoin (in the good old days). I can have up to 25 bank accounts (each a unique iBan) and couple any to any of my passes (instantly). Cash is really getting obsolete quick.

icebraining6• 8 years ago

Seems like a reasonable proposal. And 100M Kr is about 10M €, which isn't really that much for a whole country.

OskarS• 8 years ago

Here's a fun fact: I'm Swedish and have lived in Sweden my entire life, and I'm not entirely sure what my currency looks like. They changed almost all the coins and notes a few years back, after I had personally pretty much totally gone cash-less.

Without looking it up: I'm fairly certain the 1 kr coin is copper and looks sort-of like the half-krona coin used to. There's a new 2 kr coin, and they redesigned the 5 kr coin. At least one of them is, like, brass-looking, I think.

The twenty-kronor note is (I think) blue:ish and has Astrid Lindgren on it. I know Ingmar Bergman's on one one of the other notes, either the 100 kr one or the 200 kr one. I think the 200 kr one is, like, greenish. But I couldn't be sure. I don't know any of the other people on the notes, and am at best vague on what colors they are.

If you gave me a reasonably convincing fake 50 kr bank-note but with the wrong person on it, I would have no way of knowing.

21• 8 years ago

This is why I like polymer money. I have yet to hear of any fake plastic notes out there. One documentary said that buying that special plastic film is harder than getting military explosives.

I did hear about people passing paper printed fake notes instead of polymer ones, but you have to be at a whole new level of carelessness to be fooled by this one.

samsonradu• 8 years ago

We have it in Romania too and it's great, very hard to tear and also waterproof.

amelius3• 8 years ago

How about bleaching low-value notes, and printing high-value designs on top of them?

wluu• 8 years ago

The polymer notes were invented as a response to fake bank notes (Australian $10 notes in fact).

Here’s an article on it http://theconversation.com/proceeds-of-crime-how-polymer-ban...

pbhjpbhj2• 8 years ago

I've recently heard of fake "new" £10 notes in UK.

Example news story (I heard of it from a trusted acquaintance in a different region) - https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/forge...

Waterluvian2• 8 years ago

Same in Canada! We got this cool plastic money with clear windows. I've handled it on occasion but I'll have physical cash maybe once a year. I don't remember what's on our money either.

lhorie• 8 years ago

When I was in Australia some 20 years ago, all the bills were like that too. They are also different colors and sizes to cater for disabilities. I had never seen money like that before (as a young numismatics enthusiast), and only saw plastic bills again recently with the new Canadian $20 bills.

bitL3• 8 years ago

I don't remember what's on our money either.

You are missing a lot! I am now looking at your fiver full of hockey players! Can't get more Canadian; who cares about historic figures or architectural styles? ;-)

Symbiote8• 8 years ago

(British, live in Denmark.)

Last month, expecting I'd need much more cash than usual¹, I withdrew 2000kr. That meant I got a 1000kr note (1370SEK, $160).

This ended up being passed round most of my friends, including several Danish people in their 20s, who hadn't seen one before. That's not completely unreasonable.

What did surprise me was when they asked to look at the 500kr note. I think many younger Danes take out ~500kr, which the machine would give as 200+200+100kr, and use it for emergencies, i.e. buying weed.

¹ A small fair, with many foreign (especially German) traders. One had borrowed a MobilePay account, and muttered something in German like "crazy Danes with their fake money" when we paid with it.

robin_reala2• 8 years ago

I moved to Sweden last year and in that time I think I’ve made two cash withdrawals, both in the first couple of months before I had a Swedish bank account set up. Since then (and armed with a Swish account), nothing. Like you I can’t remember what the physical notes look like. Probably about 10% of shops and bars advertise themselves as not taking cash, and every single place I’ve been too takes card for any normal amount of money (even though I did feel a bit ridiculous using my card for a 5Kr icecream at IKEA the other day).

konschubert• 8 years ago

even though I did feel a bit ridiculous using my card for a 5Kr

Are you German ? ;)

jamesblonde• 8 years ago

Here's more fun facts from a non-swede who's lived in Sweden for a long time. I am currently in Berlin. I travelled by subway (paid by mobile phone) to get to the airport train in Stockholm (paid again by app on phone). I bought a can of soda - again with my phone (samsung pay with NFC, works almost everywhere now). I then boarded the plane by phone (never showed ID - some airlines dont ask for it for flights to Schengan countries).

Note, i never used my credit card once. Only my phone!

Then i landed in Germany...... (cash is king here!)

[edited for more detail]

nallerooth3• 8 years ago

This.

I'm also Swedish, and I even used to work in cash processing (at Loomis) 10 years ago. Now, after they've changed the way coins and banknotes look - I'm just as clueless as everyone else.

Usually you don't need cash, even when visiting small events.

For example, while visiting a neighboring city's historical event: - Paying for tickets: wireless debit card reader, outside on a temporary setup table under a tree. - Paying for a horse and cart ride: Mobile payment (Swish) - Paying for toilets at a restaurant (free for customers, but we didn't order food): SMS payment.

In many cases you are asked to pay by debit card or mobile, as nobody wants to carry around or handle a lot of cash. But at the same time, you usually can pay using cash - you just have to carry a lot of different notes and coins, as the vendor might not have any change.

scottybowl• 8 years ago

Cashless societies should never exist - it would be far too easy for rogue governments to turn someone's life off

acchow• 8 years ago

How would they stop blockchain transactions?

auganov• 8 years ago

Cashlessness makes it easier to cordon off the official economy from the blockchain/grey economy. That is assuming the blockchain is made illegal. Otherwise, I guess there isn't that much of a problem.

derefr• 8 years ago

Consider that it’s entirely possible to mandate that POS systems, ending machines, etc. check the serial numbers on your bills against a blacklist. Cash is no refuge if a government wants to turn enough people’s lives off badly enough.

Animats2• 8 years ago

Which China already does.

ATMs which accept currency usually read the serial number.

amiga-workbench• 8 years ago

You also have the private companies running these payment services to worry about. Paypal has a horrific track record.

Dayshine• 8 years ago

Oh come now, how do you get hold of enough cash to be immune? Keep 6 months living costs in cash in your house!?

Also, if they're turning off your bank accounts, they're turning off your utilities too... And you'll miss your car insurance payments, so you can't drive either.

michaelmrose• 8 years ago

Some people actually do this. Like most Americans they don't have 6 months of expenses in their house. Instead they get paid and pay their bills.

omgtehlion• 8 years ago

keep 6 months living costs in cash

Well, I do. Just in case, yknow. But anyway I use cards daily...

stealthmodeclan• 8 years ago

OT: I wonder why Bloomberg is Bloomberg LP instead of Bloomberg LLC.

aphextron• 8 years ago

I would assume to allow Bloomberg to maintain personal control over his namesake should he be forced out of the company. An LP reserves the right to dissolve the company in the event of a partner leaving.

apaprocki• 8 years ago

Also, keep in mind LLCs didn't practically exist when the company was created. The Wyoming LLC-as-partnership-passthrough ruling didn't happen until 1988. Other states didn't start to pass LLC laws until 1990 onward.

ggm• 8 years ago

This is worth a top level story

Tijdreiziger4• 8 years ago

I have personally been moving to a more cash-based lifestyle after I realized that I used my card so often that my payment history could be used to construct a reasonable map of my location history.

mdekkers3• 8 years ago

location history and personality profile

michelledepeil• 8 years ago

I too have been using cash almost exclusively lately for this reason, unless it is not possible to pay with cash in a store, which is happening more and more frequently.

Other benefits include: - Paying back other people is easy; - Shops are always lacking change, I can almost always pay with exact change; - Online takeaway shops charge for using their payment provider (% of the total order price) but don't make you pay for cash payments.

nothrabannosir• 8 years ago

Online takeaway shops charge for using their payment provider (% of the total order price) but don't make you pay for cash payments.

If I understand the ruling corretl, this has become illegal in the EU recently. JustEat.co.uk for example now charge a £0.50 fee for cash payments.

I’m not sure how I feel about it tbh; I get that merchants were hiding service fees as card processing fees, but on the other hand we now have government mandated subsidising of credit cards by cash users. CC users get lots of benefits, such as, most importantly the power of chargebacks. You don’t get that with cash, but now you have to subsidise it, because the cost of those services is eventually passed on to the merchant, and thus to the customer.

macintux2• 8 years ago

Dave Ramsey encourages paying cash for everything because it "hurts" much more than using a card, encouraging more restraint. You really feel that stack of lovely bills leaving your hands.

mjevans• 8 years ago

I'd be much more apt to do that if prices for things were easier to pay for without handling many different sized coins or bills. It isn't hard to do the math, but it is difficult to hunt for the CORRECT coins.

Also, in the US, why aren't all businesses required by law to just post the prices including all taxes and fees (but not discounts that might apply)?

ironjunkie2• 8 years ago

I would love to do this, but not using a Credit card in the US also means leaving money on the table. For me on average, I get about 2.5% cashback (in the form of direct cashback, or miles and other goodies). I agree with you that it is problematic though and would love to have a better privacy solution.

Paperweight2• 8 years ago

Keep in mind that that 2.5% gets deducted the final amount paid to the merchant. You may be fine with this, or you may feel a pang of guilt, depending on the merchant. :)

psergeant2• 8 years ago

I’m generally pretty privacy conscious, but not about my location data. What worries you about that?

Yetanfou2• 8 years ago

It is not just your location data which is collected and profiled but also your purchase history. The combination of these two is more than enough to make a detailed profile of who you are (as in 'what your habits are', they already know your name and address etc.) and whether you have anything 'interesting' on the go (visited the hospital, went to the drug store, bought more booze than your health care insurer thinks good for their bottom line, etc.). Payment processors sell this data to the likes of Facebook and Google who use it to make a more detailed profile. If you're fine with this, no problem, just use that bank card/Swish/Apple|Google|Samsung|whatever Pay. If you're not, cash is one of the ways of limiting your exposure to these practices.

Tijdreiziger4• 8 years ago

Nothing in particular, but I like the idea of keeping my private information to myself.

woolvalley• 8 years ago

So can your cell phone? That one is significantly worse.

Tijdreiziger4• 8 years ago

I've turned off the Google 'location history' setting, and am considering disabling location completely unless I need it, in which case I'll manually enable it.

The more radical option (which would also prevent any possible tracking by my provider) would be to forgo a cellphone entirely, but that doesn't seem practical in this day and age.

pbhjpbhj2• 8 years ago

Why is that a problem?

rando444• 8 years ago

Some people enjoy privacy, others might want to run for public office some day.

jakelarkin• 8 years ago

some differences by region but most mobile phone companies get your location passively, store it and optionally hand it off to the government or sell it to interested corporate buyers.

SOLAR_FIELDS4• 8 years ago

As an expat living in Sweden, who does not have a Swedish bank account, Sweden has a few steps left to make changes if it wants to be completely cashless but still not be unfriendly to foreign visitors.

Most of the friction I run into is related to the banks themselves - sometimes it's quite impossible to do business with them unless you have a Swedish bank card (or personal number). Examples of things I currently can't do without the above:

1. Refill my train/bus card online or buy train/bus tickets online

2. Use Swish, the Swedish half-answer between cash and cards. This is the bank-to-bank transfer protocol which is only supported by Swedish banks. It is quite convenient if you have it, you can enter in a 10-digit number which many storefronts display next to the register and it otherwise works very much like Apple Pay Cash (which is not supported here yet unfortunately)

3. Have a phone plan. I have to use prepaid and cannot top-up online. I have to always go buy top-up receipts from Pressbyrån

4. Buy from several various mom-and-pop shops that also only for some reason have card machines that support Swedish cards. They also always have a Swish number as mentioned above.

#2 and #4 are usually the most problematic. When I go out with people from Sweden and someone covers something I inevitably end up withdrawing cash as the path of least resistance.

#1 and #3 are related to a popular payment processor in Nordic countries known as DIBS, who currently likes to reject foreign cards but I suspect will eventually support them. I'm hoping Sweden's banks and other payment systems finish integrating with the rest of the world before eliminating cash entirely so as to not alienate outsiders.

egourlao• 8 years ago

Is there a reason why you don't have a Swedish bank account, even though you are living there?

mdekkers3• 8 years ago

I cannot speak for the OP, and I don't live in Sweden, but as someone freely travelling and living in many EU countries (I'm European) I can tell you that opening a bank account as an expat has become seriously hellish sometime in the the past two or three years. Transfers over certain amounts have become difficult, and more often then not, my business transactions (client invoicing) are blocked arbitrarily, pending "evidence" - 2 months ago it took me 4 weeks, and thousands of euros in legal fees to release a legitimate payment from a client to me.

In the new EU, "your money" is becoming a myth. After the Cyprus Experiment, where the banks essentially took ownership of all money, they realised they could get away with it. KYC, AML, FACTA and related bullshit are seriously concerning me. Combined with the relentless and useless drive to this "cashless society" (why do we need this?) your money is not yours any more.

SOLAR_FIELDS4• 8 years ago

I'm on international assignment and the length of my stay dictates that I am not eligible for a personal number. Without the personal number it is still possible to get a Swedish bank account (by law they actually have to give you one in Sweden as long as you know how to properly request for it) but as an someone hinted below they definitely do not make it easy for you to get one if you are American specifically or foreign in general. Even Danes that have come to work in Sweden have stories of how difficult it was for them to get Swedish bank accounts, having to quote the relevant part of the law that states that they must be awarded one upon request.

It also makes my taxes back in the US quite a bit simpler to state that I have no foreign account holdings whatsoever (I am still paid in my US bank account)

kungtotte• 8 years ago

To expand a bit on Swish: for individuals it is connected to your cell phone number. As long as someone knows my phone number they can send me money via Swish, basically you text money. Instant transfer, no charges.

Businesses can set up special Swish numbers though, like you say.

sweden• 8 years ago

Most of the things you mentioned are not related to bank accounts, they are related to having a Swedish Personnumber (Swedish national ID number).

It is perfectly possible to live in Sweden using an international bank account, I have friends who do it, and you can use for buying train/bus tickets and pay in any shop that has card readers.

I never saw "Swedish cards", what are those?

SOLAR_FIELDS4• 8 years ago

“Swedish cards” in this context means a typical credit/debit card that has been issued by a Swedish bank.

AnssiH2• 8 years ago

4. Buy from several various mom-and-pop shops that also only for some reason have card machines that support Swedish cards.

That seems unusual to me, Swedish debit cards are AFAIK just VISA/Mastercard cards so I'd think those should be accepted. I've never had any problems with my VISA debit/credit cards in Sweden but I guess I could've been lucky.

Do you have any more information about this? Or do you have a non-VISA/MC card?

SOLAR_FIELDS4• 8 years ago

Typical American Visa credit card from HugeAmericanBank with no foreign exchange fee. I suspect it is related to the payment processor as hinted above.

It’s somewhat rare and I see it only in smaller stores. Like a few days ago I was in a mom and pop kebab shop in a small town and it didn’t work.

I’ve had similar problems on RyanAir planes in Europe (but for some reason whoever does payments for EasyJet, SAS, Norwegian, or British Airways I have no issues with)

icebraining6• 8 years ago

I'd say it's probably not a technical restriction but a commercial one. Their contract with the payment provider probably doesn't include credit cards, or at least foreign ones.

forapurpose• 8 years ago

I don't understand some private persons' interest in going 'cashless', other than it seems cool and high-tech. Cash is very easy to use, and there's not much to gain from cashlessness, except for businesses and those who want to track you.

More importantly, it can't be overstated that in a world where tracking of human activities has become perhaps the greatest threat to freedom (for example, in China) and to democracy (for example, in advanced democratic countries), cash provides an amazing, simple solution to tracking of your economic activities, at least the in-person transactions. For a trivial amount of effort, you eliminate a major source of information about yourself. It's much easier than using Tor or setting up a VPN, and it's more effective.

tangentially; People are struggling to develop an electronic currency that provides reliable, anonymous, universally accepted transactions using all the tools of a computer. Imagine if the new requirement was, 'now do it using a piece of paper'. Cash is an amazing technology, even if we're all very accustomed to it.

craftyguy2• 8 years ago

. Cash is very easy to use, and there's not much to gain from cashlessness

Here are a handful reasons why carrying around cash sucks, off the top of my head:

- If you lose your wallet/purse, you've lost your money in it (with a CC you can cancel the card and dispute charges)

- You have to carry around metal change, which is awkward/annoying at best.

- Transactions are a lot slower, since you and the cashier have to count/add multiple times. This is most painful when you're in a long line of folks all paying cash.

rootlocus2• 8 years ago

- If you lose your wallet/purse, you've lost your money in it (with a CC you can cancel the card and dispute charges)

If the government / bank decides to freeze your assets, you could lose (temporary or permanently) everything. And there have been precedents in my country where the government abused this power.

- You have to carry around metal change, which is awkward/annoying at best.

Yeah, well, you always have the option to donate / leave the change. It's a minor inconvenience.

- Transactions are a lot slower, since you and the cashier have to count/add multiple times. This is most painful when you're in a long line of folks all paying cash.

Even with contactless card payments, I didn't notice much of a difference in time spent. Perhaps on large sums, which are very rare for me, but I can count a few pieces of paper fairly quicky.

kemayo• 8 years ago

Basically, sure, cash is fairly easy to use... but cashless is easier. Cashless is "I waved my watch at the register".

Cash is more stuff to carry. A wallet which just contains a few cards is tiny; if you want it to contain a reasonable amount of money in bills and coins as well, it's bulky.

Making change is a hassle -- ever had trouble paying because the shop can't make change for your bill? I have.

Not disputing the privacy downsides of cashless. But for most people's day-to-day life, it's a trade-off they're happy to make.

Animats2• 8 years ago

but cashless is easier. Cashless is "I waved my watch at the register".

No, it's not. I keep seeing people futzing with their phone, or using some combination of affinity card, credit card, and EBT card that takes forever to process. Then there's "hosted POS in the cloud", where it takes five seconds for each transaction step as it goes out to some overloaded server. The credit card terminal and the POS terminal can get out of sync, so you get a false "Chip malfunction" message if you put in your card too soon.

Here in Silicon Valley, the contactless card thing seems to have come and gone. I see "No Apple Pay" and "No Google Pay" labels taped over the RF card reader at many retailers.

walshemj3• 8 years ago

No its not most of the bulk in my wallet is my cards not the £100-200 I carry.

kevin_thibedeau2• 8 years ago

That's great until someone comes out with a zero day that recreates Superman III and funnels billions onto a blockchain.

crysin• 8 years ago

As a US citizen, I'd use cash a lot more if we didn't have coin change. Paper money can be neatly organized in my wallet but pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters make it a hassle to handle and more likely for me to lose money.

maxk42• 8 years ago

I just dump it in the tip jar.

No tip jar? No problem. I've got one at home. Every six months or so I take it to the Coinstar and trade it for $100 in neat little bills.

Symbiote8• 8 years ago

American coins are not very user friendly.

The big 25¢ coin isn't worth much, the tiny 10¢ is tiny, the 5¢ far too large, the 1¢ close to worthless. It's rare that you could make a purchase with only a few coins.

Most other wealthy countries with coins have a reasonable relation between the size (and often colour) of the coin and the value, and the coins have useful value. These are the Euro coins [1], one of each is €3.88 — already we can buy something! The €1 and €2 are thicker than the others, although of similar diameter to your quarter.

I much prefer this to the fairly dirty $1 bills in the US.

Euro coins: https://df2sm3urulav.cloudfront.net/tenants/ca/uploads/image... — some countries don't use the 1 and 2¢ coins.

JoshCole• 8 years ago

In going cash-only, you lose access to credit lines, because credit lines require established credit. For a lot of people, a lack of a credit line means they will not be able to get a house or car. As a direct result of this, someone interested in building credit will likely get a credit card.

Once you get to the point where you have both a credit card and cash the dynamic changes. There are now two ways to play. The lazier of the two ways is with the credit card. No need to go to the bank or ATM to get cash.

Humans, as a whole, tend to be lazy. I don't mean this in a negative sense, but in that we tend to be efficient. If there are two options, one of which requires more actions, we're going to prefer the one which requires less actions.

Thlom• 8 years ago

This sounds very American. No bank I've ever been in contact with have mentioned anything about a "credit line". Whenever I take up a loan the bank will use some third party company to make a credit rating of me, but I don't think it would matter to the credit rating whether I had a line of credit or not.

In most of Scandinavia (Europe?), we don't use credit cards day to day. Most have access to a credit card which can be used in a pinch (not recommended ofc) or when buying expensive things or travelling abroad or whatever, but day to day payments is with a debit card for most people.

noja4• 8 years ago

The handling fee for credit cards is crazy high (more than 1%!), I can't believe that handling cash is more expensive.

vixen99• 8 years ago

And a UK Mastercard used abroad (in the EU) attracts (nearly) 3% commission on purchases.

nimish3• 8 years ago

That's a foreign transaction fee. Good cards will not do this.

The actual interchange fee in the EU is closer to 0.3%.

leonagano2• 8 years ago

Revolut/Monzo/Starling don’t charge it

username90• 8 years ago

Not an issue in Sweden, there it is illegal to have any transaction fees on credit cards so cash will be at least as expensive.

kickling2• 8 years ago

Its illegal to make the customer pay the transaction fee if they want to pay with card, but of course companies still have to pay transaction fees to The bank.

nimish3• 8 years ago

You'd be surprised. Handling coins and bills, dealing with unexplained losses, hiring someone to transport it to/from the bank, the time taken to deal with counterfeits, not having money immediately after purchase...

It all adds up.

lotsofpulp5• 8 years ago

If you have businesses, not dealing with cash means you never have to deal with employees stealing cash, errors in counting and taxes, and very minute risk of your business being robbed (for cash).

Could also result in more customers transactions since you can process them faster if you have a simplified payment stream.

sunstone• 8 years ago

Oh right, let's go entirely to electronic payments. What could possibly go wrong? Who thought this was a good idea?

staticelf• 8 years ago

I am Swedish and have started to use cash as my primary way of spending money. By doing so, I've found that I am more reluctant to purchase expensive items and that it also will lower shops tracking ability.

I really hate the new standard of cashless. It's so stupid and a lot of people are defending it without realizing potential consequences this can have.

If a store doesn't provide an ability to pay with cash, then I am most likely not going to purchase anything from that store.

reaperducer8• 8 years ago

The article has the banks moaning that handling cash will cost them kr100 million per year. Fees that will be passed on to account holders.

I'm curious if Swedish banks passed on that kr100 million savings to their account holders when they stopped taking cash in the first place.

Reminds me of when ATMs first became widespread in the U.S. in the late 70's. The banks kept saying they were the wave of the future, and would save people tons of money because tellers wouldn't be needed anymore.

And yet bank fees went up anyway. So much for saving people money!

djrogers3• 8 years ago

No, not $100M - 100M Kronor, which is about 1/10th of $100M.

reaperducer8• 8 years ago

Yep. You caught that as I was fixing it.

lotsofpulp5• 8 years ago

How do you know that the fees didn't go up as much as they would have without the ATMs?

There also seems to be sufficient competition to allow for multiple banks offering free cash withdrawals around the US and/or the world and free checking accounts, in exchange for certain account balances or direct deposit minimums.

I've never paid a cent to a bank in fees, and they mail checks for free to my vendors when I ask them to, and I can schedule it, and I can instantly transfer money to whoever I want online via Zelle, or use Paypal/Venmo via ACH. Life seems better than what I saw my parents deal with.

mturmon• 8 years ago

Yes, that’s right, the major banks are a cartel that controls prices.

reaperducer8• 8 years ago

How do you know that the fees didn't go up as much as they would have without the ATMs?

I don't. I know the banks stated that fees would go down, and they didn't. Sounds like a lie to me.

nallerooth3• 8 years ago

A few years ago, "my" bank had a really good year and sent non reloadable VISA cards to all of their customers, sharing the profit. I don't remember exactly how much I got at that time, bit it was probably somewhere between 100-200 SEK.

Edit: I live in Sweden.

djrogers3• 8 years ago

This is obviously cultural, but the very idea of a bank that refuses to handle cash somehow feels antithetical to the very purpose of personal banking. I can't imagine a bank in the US doing that, nor can I imagine hoq fast their customers would revolt!

lotsofpulp5• 8 years ago

There are quite a few online US banks that don't handle cash. Ally, Schwab are just a couple names that come to mind. They offer very competitive savings rates and perks.

djrogers3• 8 years ago

Both of those banks do in fact handle cash - through ATMs. Note in the article, one of the options banks could employ for handling cash would be ATMs, indicating that not all banks do...

psergeant2• 8 years ago

I’ve been in the UK about ten days, and spent less than £10 of the cash I withdrew on the same day, while having spent well in excess of £500 retail

leonagano2• 8 years ago

I live in the UK. Sometimes I spend less than £100/cash in a month

falsedan• 8 years ago

I forget my PIN every 8-12 months and have to wait for a letter from my bank before I can withdraw cash from an ATM

kalleboo3• 8 years ago

I spent 2 weeks in the UK and used cash exactly twice.

Being able to use your contactless VISA card directly with turnstiles in London public transport is a game-changer.

kickling2• 8 years ago

The state bank is also looking into creating a digital currency (not necessarily crypto) that should not be controlled by the private banks.

https://archive.li/20171221075726/https://www.ft.com/content...

mnm1• 8 years ago

I've been contemplating switching to cash because it's easier to spend less, even when accounting for cash back, air miles, etc. I think this is why banks and businesses are pushing so strongly for cash less transactions only. People simply spend more this way because they are less aware of their spending. And if people use credit and don't pay things off every month, then there's interest too on top of the extra spending. Of course this is worth spending millions lobbying for, enacting, and enforcing. People are the only ones losing out on their money and privacy while companies win.

jernfrost• 8 years ago

A bit similar situation in Norway. In fact I was not quite sure what our money looks like at the moment because some of our bills changed. I just had some bills as an emergency stash for a long time, that I had to check if was still valid money.

We've even started paying street sellers and beggars electronically now. Because even they realize that almost nobody is carrying cash anymore.

Bakary3• 8 years ago

In some Chinese cities it's common for beggars to carry a Zhifubao/Alipay or Wechat pay QR-code

edtruji• 8 years ago

I live in Puerto Rico, and the hurricane María, throw the electrical grid to the floor, literally. Yes suddenly 3 million US citizens can’t use electronic payment because the hurracaine take down the whole telecommunication network.

The majors of the cities were given some satellite phones by FEMA. No traffic lights around the island ( still today some not working), the roads where blocked by electric pole on the floor. The store looting happen the first ~2 weeks. The complete island goes in ONLY CASH MODE, for around ~3 months.

But yeah, What possibly could go wrong?

I hate to use cash, I like my credit card rewards, but after María, that idea 100% cashless, u got to think about it twice.

trumped• 8 years ago

Hopefully you won't get hit bad again this year, because the season is already coming...

Cash is also good for privacy purposes because businesses can't buy your purchase history when you use cash.

oldcynic2• 8 years ago

Ireland tried cashless in the 70s with a 6 month bank strike.

When cash ran out they survived by using undated cheques (often re-signed multiple times as they were passed around like notes), and when cheques ran out IOUs and local trust.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-can-all-get-...

gaius2• 8 years ago

Others take the example of the Irish bank strike as evidence that much of what banks do is a “socially useless activity”.

Presumably the author of this piece also feels that since newspapers could be replaced by bloggers they are also socially useless ...?

oldcynic2• 8 years ago

Perhaps. I just skimmed for coverage of the events without a care for their social and political stance. The Independent itself is pretty consistently centrist in outlook.

XalvinX2• 8 years ago

I know I'm new here but I wish people wouldn't link to bloomberg and other sites (including the NYT) that only let you read X number of "free articles" per month. I know how to get around it, but it is a bother. Anyone else feel this way?

Anyways, I think the idea of cashlessness is not only scary but very impractical. What about, for instance, farmer's markets, yard sales, buying something like a newspaper or pack of gum, etc? Do people really use cards for purchases of a few cents, and do farmers and (let's just say) lemonade stands actually take charge cards? Stupid. And, needless to say to a bunch of hackers, Orwellian as fk.

grzm• 8 years ago

"I know I'm new here but I wish people wouldn't link to bloomberg and other sites (including the NYT) that only let you read X number of "free articles" per month. I know how to get around it, but it is a bother. Anyone else feel this way?"

Welcome to HN!

This is a FAQ:

"Are paywalls ok?"
"It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds."
"In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

XalvinX2• 8 years ago

Welcome to HN!

Thank you. :-)

Sweden Tries to Halt Its March to Total Cashlessness

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