Cashless Future

[Coss]

Thoughts?

Recently I happened to desire a trip on one of Auckland's many harbour ferries.

When buying a ticket: "...not with cash." they said.

Result? No trip for me, no money for them.

From elsewhere: Currency allows people to hold their wealth and use it as they see fit.  This transition to cash-less societies terrifies me.  Bureaucrats, both governmental and corporate will be able to turn one's access to their money off on a whim and use that to coerce that person into whatever compromise they want.  It really is a monumental power grab and the inevitability that corrupt governments and greedy businesses will take full advantage of it is a certainty.

Yes.

[Mekong]

They could turn the ATM off so for the majority who don’t get paid in cash they already have control over access to money.

I used to be a Luddite like yourself, but it is so much easier with RFID for cards or NFC for using your iPhone, once you get used to it you will be fine, but some have trouble keeping track of payments. At least with cash if you withdraw $500 from ATM you can see what you are spending 

When ATM first introduced many people didn’t trust those “god damned new fangled machines”  that they could talk to, and may give them the wrong money 

Honestly it would be easier to shut down ATM network and stop withdrawals that to block all methods of contactless payment, and your fears are unfounded just like your previous fears of Smart TV’s 

[Old Hippie]

21 hours ago, Coss said:

Thoughts?

Recently I happened to desire a trip on one of Auckland's many harbour ferries.

When buying a ticket: "...not with cash." they said.

Result? No trip for me, no money for them.

From elsewhere: Currency allows people to hold their wealth and use it as they see fit.  This transition to cash-less societies terrifies me.  Bureaucrats, both governmental and corporate will be able to turn one's access to their money off on a whim and use that to coerce that person into whatever compromise they want.  It really is a monumental power grab and the inevitability that corrupt governments and greedy businesses will take full advantage of it is a certainty.

Yes.

Hence why I am fearful of “bit coin” and other “block chain currencies” (if that is the correct term?).   Do not like the idea of 100% cashless either…allows for privacy invasions and too much control. Not sure how it goes anywhere else, but here in the USA, if you go to buy groceries at certain chains, they offer one price if you are NOT a “club member” and a much better/lower price for “members” They also offer special “Q code sales” and “digital insider” prices that are insanely low. If you use all the codes and specials, you can save a small fortune…however, all that comes with a price.

     What price? Your privacy, the chain (in this case Safeway/Vons) tracks everything you buy…what do they do with that info? Well, someone will pay them for it…health insurance companies being a big one…. There is a reason they don’t just lower the price and charge the same price for everyone…. But enough of this conspiracy Nuttery, where should I send you “MAGA” hat?

[Old Hippie]

20 hours ago, Mekong said:

They could turn the ATM off so for the majority who don’t get paid in cash they already have control over access to money.

I used to be a Luddite like yourself, but it is so much easier with RFID for cards or NFC for using your iPhone, once you get used to it you will be fine, but some have trouble keeping track of payments. At least with cash if you withdraw $500 from ATM you can see what you are spending 

When ATM first introduced many people didn’t trust those “god damned new fangled machines”  that they could talk to, and may give them the wrong money 

Honestly it would be easier to shut down ATM network and stop withdrawals that to block all methods of contactless payment, and your fears are unfounded just like your previous fears of Smart TV’s 

I don’t think it would be all that difficult to shut things down. Any pay app on your phone is usually tied to a credit card or bank account, so shutting down your bank account might accomplish the same thing. Or “they” could just shut down your phone and ATM…trust me, if “that” really want to get you, they can do it really fast. The government knows everything about you already…look what little time it took them to identify the trump shooter…just with a finger print scanner…or was it more..? (Paranoia) Time to change the tinfoil in my MAGA hat…

[Mekong]

That’s what I was saying, Coss was worried about “Big Brother” interfering with Cash Free payments and I replied they could more easily shut down the ATM networks so you wouldn’t have access to cash 

Unless one works cash in hand, which is very rare nowadays,  Big Brother could interfere with your purchasing power, either directly by blocking contactless payments or indirectly by shutting down ATM network. External control of your purchasing power / access to money is not a new phenomenon related to the higher occurrence of contactless payments, authorities have had the power to shut down ATM networks for decades 

Maybe Coss should check out This Website

[Coss]

I'm way ahead of the conspiracy nuttery.

 It's the electricity.

Some dolts here, undid the bolts, of a Power Pylon, in the name of maintenance. It fell over, there was no power for a significant part of the country, fortunately  the company got it back up and running after a couple of days. But riots in the streets, were only hours away.

Where's yer money then? inside a set of computers that won't turn on?

[Mekong]

So you are telling me that you keep $500 under your bed just in case**, because if there is a power outage the ATM also won’t work 

** Mr’s Kong does just that, 100,000 THB in the safe “Just in case”

 

[Stickman]

Like most New Zealanders, I pay for almost everything by electronic transaction - but I like the option of being able to pay by cash. Perhaps only 1% of stores here don't accept cash but I expect that to slowly increase. And certainly, some stores which accept cash actually prefer you to pay by card / electronic means.

With electronic transactions now very much the norm here, plenty of people don't use cash. But when something happens, you'll wish you had some cash at hand. I keep some cash in the house and given what happened here last year, I am *very* glad that I did.

For anyone who thinks cash is unnecessary, here's something to think about. In February of last year, parts of the North Island of New Zealand were hit hard by Cyclone Gabrielle. The town where I live, Napier, was cut off from everywhere with roads badly damaged and no way in or out. We could not get out and outsiders could not get in (other than by plane or helicopter). The power was out for 5 days across the city. Supermarkets opened as did petrol stations and some other stores but it was cash-only (as no other means of payments would work). Plenty of people did not have cash which meant could not buy food or petrol or essential supplies.

[Coss]

Further - one of the larger Banks (BNZ)here "went down" only for a day, but that meant, that unless their customers had the foresight, to have other banks, they were moneyless for a whole day. A big stink was raised, when customers discovered that the bank still and retrospectively, collected mortgage payments and interest for the time down.

Yet further - when one has interests in a 3rd world Communist state, one has to be circumspect about what gets transferred to whom and when and how.

True Story: Before I left for Laos in '11, I went to the local Auckland bank here and said, to the nice Asian lady, watched by the middle aged woman assistant manager, "I have $XX,XXX.xx in this account, I will be buying a car, some land etc, so when I do so, from Laos with this card, I can expect no hitches right?

She agreed and I got her name and phone and email to correspond later, for safety.

One fine day in Laos, I went to transfer some money, I phoned the nice Asian Lady, out of an abundance of caution, she wasn't there,  the middle aged woman assistant manager was.

I said I would transfer the money, she was noncommittal. The money transfer did not work immediately (common then for things to take hours or days), but when I went to the ATM for drinking money, it swallowed my card.

Long story short - I spent 2 days and ~$80 on mobile phone charges, calling the Bank's head office in Wellington and eventually got my transfer done and my card's functionality transferred to a credit card I had with them. When asked why the card was swallowed after my call to their staff member, they got very vague and shuffled.

Some time later I removed any association I had with that bank - because they could not be trusted in the handling of My Money, not their money, not a scam or a crime - MY Money.

[Mekong]

4 hours ago, Stickman said:

I pay for almost everything by electronic transaction - but I like the option of being able to pay by cash.

And that is, I assume, how most people feel, and how it should be. Thailand though is still a cash centric society, over 80% of transactions are done in cash, I haven’t been out of Asia since 2013 now so I don’t know how cashless the west has gone. 

One point though Coss, the ATM machine swallowing your card had nothing to do with cashless society, unless you walk around its a perpetual pocket of cash you will always be reliant on electronics to access your money. In my Passport holder / Travel wallet I always have USD 1,000 and GBP 1,000 and my “Get out of Jail Free” card is an approx 75 grams gold necklace I bought in a Benghazi  Gold Souk in ‘91 when working in Libya, never wear it, stashed in the travel wallet. Gold is accepted anywhere