Cashless Society

[GetIntoEm]

Banks charging money for customers to deposit cash?...... that should be illegal for a start!
As should refusing cash transactions, some people wether by choice or because they've fallen on hard times can't or won't use credit/bank cards.

As for the banks, since Taxpayers bailed them out, they've done nothing but come up with new, more creative ways to fleece their customers & increase profit....same goes for the airlines.
Where will it all end?
The customer is nothing more than something to exploit for profit.

Business customers yes.

By the same reasoning, refusing people to pay by card shouldn't be allowed

[No Ney Never]

Cards and fees will be a thing of the past when it becomes normal to pay in crypto direct from a digital wallet to the business from whom you're buying goods or services. No bank or card provider required in order to facilitate the transaction, negligible transaction fee paid by the sender, business keeps 100% of the value of the transaction. The only place you'll see cash and cards will be the antiques roadshow!

[Bow]

Cards and fees will be a thing of the past when it becomes normal to pay in crypto direct from a digital wallet to the business from whom you're buying goods or services. No bank or card provider required in order to facilitate the transaction, negligible transaction fee paid by the sender, business keeps 100% of the value of the transaction. The only place you'll see cash and cards will be the antiques roadshow!

Haven’t people been saying this is about to happen for 10 years?

[exilecanada]

Cards and fees will be a thing of the past when it becomes normal to pay in crypto direct from a digital wallet to the business from whom you're buying goods or services. No bank or card provider required in order to facilitate the transaction, negligible transaction fee paid by the sender, business keeps 100% of the value of the transaction. The only place you'll see cash and cards will be the antiques roadshow!

Quite possibly...................in the year 2060 Given the age demographic of this board, I doubt many will see your prediction and therefore won't care

[No Ney Never]

Haven’t people been saying this is about to happen for 10 years?

About to happen implies that mass adoption and mainstream is imminent, credit cards, debit cards, chip and pin, NFC transmission, etc. have all taken time to develop and become adopted by the masses, blockchain technology and digital currency in everyday transactions will likely follow the same path.

[exilecanada]

About to happen implies that mass adoption and mainstream is imminent, credit cards, debit cards, chip and pin, NFC transmission, etc. have all taken time to develop and become adopted by the masses, blockchain technology and digital currency in everyday transactions will likely follow the same path.

So you say your crypto nonsense is imminent as in 'about to happen'? Sure, just like Canada will imminently become part of the 'Useless State of Murica'

[Big Vinny K]

Banks charging money for customers to deposit cash?...... that should be illegal for a start!
As should refusing cash transactions, some people wether by choice or because they've fallen on hard times can't or won't use credit/bank cards.

As for the banks, since Taxpayers bailed them out, they've done nothing but come up with new, more creative ways to fleece their customers & increase profit....same goes for the airlines.
Where will it all end?
The customer is nothing more than something to exploit for profit.

Historically banks have always charged businesses for banking. They would argue that is part of the reason they can offer personal customers free banking and also that there is a high cost to processing cash, cheques etc.

But I agree that the obscene profits made by banks takes the p-iss out of these arguments.

I worked in the sector for 35 years and was heavily involved in reviewing bank charges with the regulator and the Competition and Markets Authority. They reviewed all business account charges being applied by all the banks and it was a massive piece of work where banks had to evidence the cost of processing transactions and the margin of profit being made etc. But as is the case with all these reviews nothing ever happens afterwards - or nothing worthy of note.

No government dare legislate in this area. Many reasons for this - none of em good. Regulator is toothless, Perfect cosy cartel and literally a license to print money.

[GordonvaleClaret]

"No cash" annoys me somewhat, but what really peeves me is when a place will only accept one card brand.
eg Only Visa accepted.

[blackbulllad]

Historically banks have always charged businesses for banking. They would argue that is part of the reason they can offer personal customers free banking and also that there is a high cost to processing cash, cheques etc.

But I agree that the obscene profits made by banks takes the p-iss out of these arguments.

I worked in the sector for 35 years and was heavily involved in reviewing bank charges with the regulator and the Competition and Markets Authority. They reviewed all business account charges being applied by all the banks and it was a massive piece of work where banks had to evidence the cost of processing transactions and the margin of profit being made etc. But as is the case with all these reviews nothing ever happens afterwards - or nothing worthy of note.

No government dare legislate in this area. Many reasons for this - none of em good. Regulator is toothless, Perfect cosy cartel and literally a license to print money.

Curious though, during your time working with the regulator, did any bank actually come close to being pushed to reduce fees or margins? Or was it all just smoke and mirrors from the start?

[No Ney Never]

So you say your crypto nonsense is imminent as in 'about to happen'? Sure, just like Canada will imminently become part of the 'Useless State of Murica'

The only thing nonsensical is your tone and language.
I think you've misread it, I'm saying imminent implies about to happen which is not the case, like some of the examples I gave, these things take time from Inception to mass implementation/adoption.

[GetIntoEm]

Curious though, during your time working with the regulator, did any bank actually come close to being pushed to reduce fees or margins? Or was it all just smoke and mirrors from the start?

Why should they? They are money making businesses, their sole purpose is to make the shareholders money

[Big Vinny K]

Curious though, during your time working with the regulator, did any bank actually come close to being pushed to reduce fees or margins? Or was it all just smoke and mirrors from the start?

Banks have had to reduce a whole range of fees, interest rates and the way they charge in both retail and business banking. The last 20 or 25 years has been pretty much a constant treadmill of review after review with the regulator around fairer and more transparent charges. It’s cost the banks tens of billions - and a bulk of this is in the cost of making those changes (to IT systems, changing literature / websites, communication to customers etc.
Some of the biggest beneficiaries of all this work are the big 4 consultancy firms who spend years leading these projects on behalf of the regulator and they bring in teams of their people to spend years in each of the banks.

Whether the impact of all these changes have been noticed by most ordinary customers or not is debatable. There’s millions of customers who will have been impacted by PPI, the packaged accounts review, the way overdrafts are charged etc and they will have benefited financially (whether they have noticed or not !!)

Business customers will probably have noticed the changes even less - partly because businesses have such a massive variation in type….from one man bands to multi nationals employing thousands of people. There is also a big variation between the banks in what they charge businesses unlike the little difference that exists in the personal market between current accounts. So it’s definitely worth shopping round.

One of the biggest things that banks have some now still managed to get away with in terms of business accounts is the charges many of the banks still make for automated credits and debits going into a business accounts. We know now that these make up the vast bulk of all transactions with the significant reductions in cash, cheques etc. The cost of processing these transactions is extremely low and those running their own businesses will know that they can be charged 25p or more for these transactions. It’s incredible that this area has not been regulated and banks told they need to charge for these relative to the cost….in fact in reality they should be free (up to a certain volume at least)

[blackbulllad]

So basically… banks paid billions to look like they’re playing nice, but the customer still gets squeezed, just with more paperwork and nicer graphics?The automated transaction fees for businesses really are ridiculous. It costs the bank fractions of a penny to process, and they’re charging 25p or more? Feels like a scam hiding in plain sight.

[IanMcL]

Cards and fees will be a thing of the past when it becomes normal to pay in crypto direct from a digital wallet to the business from whom you're buying goods or services. No bank or card provider required in order to facilitate the transaction, negligible transaction fee paid by the sender, business keeps 100% of the value of the transaction. The only place you'll see cash and cards will be the antiques roadshow!

Another tax on the people?

[Woodleyclaret]

Sign of the times in Wokingham, no Natwest anymore but the Big Issue woman outside Waitrose has a card reader to take payments.

[Big Vinny K]

Another tax on the people?

What do you mean ?

[Stalbansclaret]

I’m impressed that this thread has got this far without a tin-foil hat clad contributor telling us that they only use cash because it’s the only way of stopping “them” controlling our lives.
I use cards for virtually 100pc of my spending, partly because those bank notes are damn slippery and easy to lose nowadays. It irks me when businesses (notably Chinese takeaways) stipulate “cash only” and I tend to avoid these. Nearly blew a gasket in Park View chippy when I was ravenously hungry before the Liverpool Covid/ballot home game and they couldn’t take a card !

[The Shire Claret]

The only thing nonsensical is your tone and language.
I think you've misread it, I'm saying imminent implies about to happen which is not the case, like some of the examples I gave, these things take time from Inception to mass implementation/adoption.

I think you are still a good way off this - It will also need to be centralised in some capacity for trust and certainty and insurance of savings

[dsr]

I can understand people using card and/or phone for virtually all transactions, but it always surprises me when they don't have any cash at all. Phones can fail, cards can fail, cash never fails. The £20 in your pocket never becomes unusable.

(I suspect that most businesses in the recent Spanish power cut, even those that don't accept cash, managed to cope with cash after all when it was all there was.)

[fatboy47]

Looks like I'll need a card reader for my honesty box out in the lane

[Weymouth Claret]

Wake up people !!! Control is the primary reason without any doubt. They will know EVERYTHING and more if they don't already !

[ClaretAndJew]

Wake up people !!! Control is the primary reason without any doubt. They will know EVERYTHING and more if they don't already !

They already know everything about everyone.

[CaptJohn]

If you shop at the Co-op you'll need cash, as this latest hack has stopped them using card payments.

[No Ney Never]

I think you are still a good way off this - It will also need to be centralised in some capacity for trust and certainty and insurance of savings

Agreed, which will likely centre around the adoption of stable coins in the regulated banking and finance sector, not the highly volatile coins that most people associate with crypto.

[dsr]

The big disadvantage of crypto is that it's all secret and no=one can trace where the money has gone. I want my savings to be kept in a secure place where there is a trail to say where it has gone - otherwise, how can I get anything back if someone steals it?

[Bosscat]

The big disadvantage of crypto is that it's all secret and no=one can trace where the money has gone. I want my savings to be kept in a secure place where there is a trail to say where it has gone - otherwise, how can I get anything back if someone steals it?

Or you keep it (£500 million) on a hard drive in a drawer and your Mrs throws it out and the council won't allow you to search the local tips

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgr0dyy152jo

[IanMcL]

What do you mean ?

The statement made was that the purchasers would pay a small charge,

[Big Vinny K]

The statement made was that the purchasers would pay a small charge,

The statement made was that the sender would pay a negligible fee but that the retailer would keep 100% of the monies instead of paying card transaction fees or fees for paying in the cash. Meaning that these costs don’t have to be built into the price of the goods either so prices would go down.

Personally think we are a long way off from crypto being used as an everyday alternative to cards, cash etc as the infrastructure, financial regulation and things like depositor protection are not in place.

[Tribesmen]

Use cash and card no real problem with either .
Was in Spain with the black out now easy to use cash at that time my only problem was we had electric gates where we were living which were stuck for 18 hours . Hey 3 hour before we were set to leave Spain the electricity came back on so at least we made the ferry .

[Foshiznik]

Just have a cash till on the concessions counter with a separate queue. I use card because i hate carrying a bulky wallet and carrying loose change.

It's also annoying when someone is in front of you at the till who decided it would be better to count their money when told the total cost and their are about to pay and then counting their change and putting it away in their purse before the next person in the queue can be served.

[Plissken]

Personally think we are a long way off from crypto being used as an everyday alternative to cards, cash etc as the infrastructure, financial regulation and things like depositor protection are not in place.

Visa's infrastructure can - and sometimes does - handle 24,000 transactions per second. You can then extrapolate similar for Mastercard, AMEX etc etc.

Bitcoin can handle... wait for it... 7. Seven.

[Bosscat]

Visa's infrastructure can - and sometimes does - handle 24,000 transactions per second. You can then extrapolate similar for Mastercard, AMEX etc etc.

Bitcoin can handle... wait for it... 7. Seven.

Hmmm Bitcoin is very efficient .... ohhhhh hang on a minute