Welcome to the Precious Metals Bug Forums
Welcome to the PMBug forums - a watering hole for folks interested in gold, silver, precious metals, sound money, investing, market and economic news, central bank monetary policies, politics and more.
Why not register an account and join the discussions? When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no Google ads, market data/charts, access to trade/barter with the community and much more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!
Well, in the end, that's gonna happen.
"Cashless" is to empower the State. The non-money digital-scrip-with-strings.
What the WEF morons aren't considering, is that it sucks the motivation, the joy, the drive, out of life and out of the economy.
And what THAT does, is turn us into a late-stage USSR. In fact, even worse - the Soviet subjects could drink, smoke, fornicate, and sneer at their aged, senile, ridiculous tyrant-masters. They could trade in various black markets.
We won't have that chance, not as this is imposed - with digital surveillance everywhere.
So the motivation is gone. And so, the hard work of just SUSTAINING an incredibly complex series of systems...is not done or is sabotaged from within.
The electrical grid wobbles; the EBT cards and FedCoin chips no longer work...the cameras are defective or dead...and that's when the mattocks come out and the blood flows.
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
Cash payments rise in UK as people seek ways to manage budgets
Number of payments using coins and notes rose 7% last year amid cost of living crisis, after a decade of decline
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
Title of thread is "Drumbeats for the cashless society." This guy might be the drummer.
While the campaign might be popular in some quarters, this does not make it right. Rather than try to save cash, we should be trying to speed up its demise starting with 1p and 2p coins.
Moving towards a cashless society would bring significant contributions to the country. The most obvious one being to bank customers themselves. For example, everytime you withdraw cash from a hole in the wall operated by a different bank, your bank pays an interchange fee. What is more, it is costly for banks and a poor use of their resources to pay people to dispense cash. All of this means that banks provide a poorer service to their customers then they otherwise would.
More:
www.standard.co.uk
We should scrap cash. It is holding our country back
A short-sighted campaign has begun to save cash. It certainly has some high profile backers including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage. A petition was signed and delivered to Number 10 which prompted a supportive statement from the Treasury.While the campaign might be popular in some quarters, this does not make it right. Rather than try to save cash, we should be trying to speed up its demise starting with 1p and 2p coins.
Moving towards a cashless society would bring significant contributions to the country. The most obvious one being to bank customers themselves. For example, everytime you withdraw cash from a hole in the wall operated by a different bank, your bank pays an interchange fee. What is more, it is costly for banks and a poor use of their resources to pay people to dispense cash. All of this means that banks provide a poorer service to their customers then they otherwise would.
More:
We should scrap cash. It is holding our country back
City Voices: Going cashless would help fight crime, raise taxes and spur innovation
www.standard.co.uk
Follow up to posts 186 and 187:
More:
More:
RBI sets deadline for ₹2,000 note exchange despite ongoing legal tender status
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has declared a deadline for the exchange or deposit of ₹2,000 banknotes. This directive, issued on May 19, seeks to remove these high-denomination notes from circulation. The deadline for this action is on Monday. Despite the nearing deadline, these ₹2,000...
thethaiger.com
- Messages
- 133
- Reaction score
- 127
- Points
- 148
Yep and don't forget that they have claimed that bills are laced with fentanyl or cocaine. While that may or may not be true, it seems more like a part of the plan to scare people away from using cash.
Those are the dumbest reasons ever, for going cashless.
Dispensing cash is one of the primary jobs of a bank.
It'd be like wanting electricians to not have to work with electricity.
Or drivers to not have to drive vehicles.
Those are all the reasons they could come up with.
The **GOOD** reasons. We all know, or should know, the real reason: CONTROL.
How far do they get with this, before the average prole spits on his hand, hoists the black flag, and begins slitting throats?
The **GOOD** reasons. We all know, or should know, the real reason: CONTROL.
How far do they get with this, before the average prole spits on his hand, hoists the black flag, and begins slitting throats?
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
Used to be. Once in a while I see people in the CU asking for some cash but not too often. I do see people getting cash at ATM's a lot.
Hardly ever see anyone paying cash at a store now-a-days. At Sam's I see a lot of peeps paying as they shop with their phones. They don't need to use checkouts. Just show the phone info to the receipt checker at the exit.
I buy food and other things for an elderly person. No cash is physically exchanged. I use a cc for the purchases, give the person the receipt and transfer money from his / her account to my account. Easy peasy. Some of my friends send money to their kids via phone apps. Bills are paid using auto pay or paid online, etc.
Any more I look at banks as transfer stations for digital dollars.
I'm no proponent for a cashless society but things are a lot more convenient today than they were years ago.
Edit to add: I'm a firm believer in having an emergency stash of cash on hand................just in case.
Last edited:
The quest for convenience is what will doom cash. Then bye bye to any financial privacy we had left. Thanks a lot.
Your own actions are working towards making that a meaningless.
Follow up to post #205:
https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/new...l-continue-to-remain-legal-tender/ar-AA1huq2v
Looks like tomorrow is the deadline.
https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/new...l-continue-to-remain-legal-tender/ar-AA1huq2v
Looks like tomorrow is the deadline.
Last news I posted on this was in February. This morning I found this report from two months ago:
Swiss Start Consultation on Constitutional Protection for Cash
(Bloomberg) -- The Swiss government started a consultation on a proposal to enshrine the availability of cash in the constitution. The move is a response to a “Cash is freedom” initiative submitted to the government earlier this year. Campaigners want to put the issue to a national vote under...
www.swissinfo.ch
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
A little bit of this, a little bit of that.
9:08
The U.S. hasn't updated physical currency but some countries have changed lower denomination bills into coins and paper notes have been converted to polymer. While electronic payments are growing in the U.S., physical cash today is circulated more than ever. Experts claim that the choice to continue printing paper notes is fueled by special interests but The Federal Reserve says changing currency is costly and complex.
What's Wrong With U.S. Cash
Nov 12, 20239:08
The U.S. hasn't updated physical currency but some countries have changed lower denomination bills into coins and paper notes have been converted to polymer. While electronic payments are growing in the U.S., physical cash today is circulated more than ever. Experts claim that the choice to continue printing paper notes is fueled by special interests but The Federal Reserve says changing currency is costly and complex.
Regarding India's push to eliminate rupee notes:
More:
www.rediff.com
So much for central bank independence!
More:
Demonetisation: Why Did RBI Protect Modi?
Events proved that on every count the RBI had accurately predicted both the damage and the lack of benefit. What the RBI was hiding was the fact that Modi had ignored its concerns -- all of which turned out to be true -- and gone ahead anyway, asserts Aakar Patel.
So much for central bank independence!
There's always a "good" reason for those in positions of power, to do what they want to do, for anything-but-good reasons.
It's called "rationalizing." Obviously, in the best Leftist Mediuh tradition, it's giving their midwits and NPCs, PERMISSION to think as they instruct them to think. Their reasons are not to be examined logically - this is a transmission of The Narrative.
And Powell is a problem - to them - because he stands in the way of ZIRP-Infinity, UBI-Stimmy, and other MMT fantasy-theories.
Powell is probably not a nice guy, not a White Hat, but I think the current crop of radical looters are just too much for him to stomach. IMHO he was kept in his post by forces who want to blow up the financial system and blame it on him - and it's working, their Narrative sold even to lesser lights in the Non-Left side. Somehow we got the idea that ZIRP is a basic Conservative American RIGHT.
Well, it looks like it's all coming down. I have no love for the FRB, but what replaces it - government CBDCs, controlled by an algorithm, no traditional bank even required or possible - that's going to be a thousand times worse.
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
Not a fan of a digital currency at all. But from everything I read I think it's coming. All the stuff from the IMF & the BIS that's been posted here kinda points in that direction.
Would not want to be at the mercy of someone who could shut off my ability to buy anything on a whim or because they didn't like something I said or they don't like how I comb my hair.
Then there's the "system is down" thing. I've been in places where the credit card readers were down and / or the power went out. Cash became king then.
I don't know if it's coming - if we will fail in stopping it from coming - or not. I cannot conceive of a world without money, which is what that world would be...a world where government scrip, only conditionally honored, would be the only exchange tool.
And maybe that's where we wind up. As with this Transhumanism debacle (so far; with the mRNA genetic hacking) perhaps a lot of people will suffer and die in the fool's attempt to force it on the masses.
It's not even about right and wrong. It's about workable and unworkable; and about freedom - to buy what you want, earned with your sweat - or enslavement, where we're all at the mercy of a labyrinth of computer algorithms, which determine who may have what...based on how they rank according to faceless government programmers and Social Credit Scores.
Fight it with all you have at hand, because if you don't, you will surely eventually die. Or at least, suffer malnutrition and extreme discomfort until this dystopian scheme collapses.
And maybe that's where we wind up. As with this Transhumanism debacle (so far; with the mRNA genetic hacking) perhaps a lot of people will suffer and die in the fool's attempt to force it on the masses.
It's not even about right and wrong. It's about workable and unworkable; and about freedom - to buy what you want, earned with your sweat - or enslavement, where we're all at the mercy of a labyrinth of computer algorithms, which determine who may have what...based on how they rank according to faceless government programmers and Social Credit Scores.
Fight it with all you have at hand, because if you don't, you will surely eventually die. Or at least, suffer malnutrition and extreme discomfort until this dystopian scheme collapses.
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
D.C. Is Now Enforcing Its Cashless Business Ban: What That Could Mean for You
Last month, Washington, D.C., became the latest municipality in which most consumer-facing businesses must accept cash as payment.The law, which went into effect October 1, 2023, represents a growing backlash by cities across the country against businesses that want to accept noncash payments only, such as credit card and digital payments. Philadelphia and New York City have similar rules in place, and Los Angeles is considering a similar measure.
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
FWIW:
While proponents of central bank digital currencies argue that the technology would boost financial inclusion and efficiency, critics warn that it poses financial, political, and environmental risks. But these concerns are overblown, especially when also weighed against CBDCs’ potential to strengthen monetary policy.
NEW YORK – The European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve have each said that they do not intend to abolish physical cash if and when a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is introduced. Recent policy briefs by the ECB and the Bretton Woods Committee argue against paying interest (positive or negative) on CBDCs. Policymakers should reconsider both stances. There are good reasons not only to support the early introduction of CBDCs, but also to pay interest on them and abolish cash.
Read the rest:
www.project-syndicate.org
A Farewell to Cash
Dec 11, 2023 WILLEM H. BUITERWhile proponents of central bank digital currencies argue that the technology would boost financial inclusion and efficiency, critics warn that it poses financial, political, and environmental risks. But these concerns are overblown, especially when also weighed against CBDCs’ potential to strengthen monetary policy.
NEW YORK – The European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve have each said that they do not intend to abolish physical cash if and when a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is introduced. Recent policy briefs by the ECB and the Bretton Woods Committee argue against paying interest (positive or negative) on CBDCs. Policymakers should reconsider both stances. There are good reasons not only to support the early introduction of CBDCs, but also to pay interest on them and abolish cash.
Read the rest:
A Farewell to Cash | by Willem H. Buiter - Project Syndicate
Willem H. Buiter rebuts the three main arguments against introducing an interest-bearing central bank digital currency.
www.project-syndicate.org
That's some grade A authoritarian excrement right there, but what else would you expect from a former chief economist at Citibank and former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England?
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
10 REASONS TO FIGHT CASHLESS CONTAGION
Total payments uberfication is a virus, and we need to build resistance to it.
Imagine referring to whisky as ‘beerless alcohol’, or to Metallica as a ‘folk music-less band’. Those descriptions are deeply uniformative because they draw attention to what’s absent rather than what’s present. The same can be said about the phrase ‘cashless society’. It’s an evasive euphemism that refers to the situation in which every transaction in our economy has to be routed via the banking sector using big tech devices. If this Big Finance-Tech Society is going to be called ‘cashless’, we better call cash payments ‘bankless’.
Cash can co-exist with cards and apps, and when kept in balance, the different forms of payment can complement each other. It’s only when that balance is removed that the dark side of digital payments gets to flourish. Unfortunately, across the world we’re seeing the spread of so-called ‘cashlessness’, a type of contagion in which the option to pay with non-corporate and non-automated money is incrementally taken away from you.
The fight against cashless society, then, is a fight against a state of unbalance. I’ve campaigned on this for eight years now, and in this piece I’ll lay out 10 talking points that you can use to make even the most ardent card-tapper have second thoughts about a totally bank-dominated society.
Read the rest:
10 reasons to fight cashless contagion - Positive Money
Total payments uberfication is a virus, and we need to build resistance to it.
positivemoney.org
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
WWLP Springfield
“Cash has to be accepted everywhere. And so we’re actively reviewing this. Obviously, some things happened before I got into office,” Campbell said on GBH Radio’s “Boston Public Radio” Tuesday. The attorney general was responding to a question about “cashlessness” from co-host Margery Eagan, who said listeners had texted in with examples of cash being declined at Baystate Medical Center, UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the Boston Calling music festival. Campbell asked those listeners to file complaints with her office.
More:
AG: “Cash has to be accepted everywhere”
BOSTON, Mass. (WWLP)–Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Tuesday her office is taking another look at an issue that had previously been settled by her predecessor, Gov. Maura Healey, and it’s something that lots of consumers have complained to her about — whether businesses can require customers pay with something other than cold hard cash.“Cash has to be accepted everywhere. And so we’re actively reviewing this. Obviously, some things happened before I got into office,” Campbell said on GBH Radio’s “Boston Public Radio” Tuesday. The attorney general was responding to a question about “cashlessness” from co-host Margery Eagan, who said listeners had texted in with examples of cash being declined at Baystate Medical Center, UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the Boston Calling music festival. Campbell asked those listeners to file complaints with her office.
More:
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
Came across this by accident. Interesting.........imo.
Australia is amending its retail payments regulation in 2024, the country’s top financial regulator said.
Speaking at the Australian Payment Network Summit on 12 December, Governor Michele Bullock shared that the Retail Bank of Australia (RBA) is planning to conduct a comprehensive review of retail payments regulation under its expanded regulatory perimeter.
Bullock noted the need to modernise Australia’s regulatory architecture and payments infrastructure in order to support innovations in the payments’ industry.
“The payments landscape is changing rapidly, with new business models and technologies entering the space. The industry is also moving from legacy systems towards new platforms that can deliver payment services that are faster, safer and more convenient,” Bullock told attendees of the summit in Sydney, and emphasized the need to strengthen the resilience of Australia’s payments and market infrastructures.
More:
Australia to amend retail payments regulation in 2024: governor
Reforms will include better cost transparency from BNPL, mobile wallets.Australia is amending its retail payments regulation in 2024, the country’s top financial regulator said.
Speaking at the Australian Payment Network Summit on 12 December, Governor Michele Bullock shared that the Retail Bank of Australia (RBA) is planning to conduct a comprehensive review of retail payments regulation under its expanded regulatory perimeter.
Bullock noted the need to modernise Australia’s regulatory architecture and payments infrastructure in order to support innovations in the payments’ industry.
“The payments landscape is changing rapidly, with new business models and technologies entering the space. The industry is also moving from legacy systems towards new platforms that can deliver payment services that are faster, safer and more convenient,” Bullock told attendees of the summit in Sydney, and emphasized the need to strengthen the resilience of Australia’s payments and market infrastructures.
More:
Since you admittedly don't like the idea digital currency, what are you doing to help prevent it?
Do you use cash as often as possible? Or cards for convenience?
Do you support those pushing for it, or those who are also opposed to it?
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
10-35
And that means what?
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
Confidential information
Joe, I'm going to answer your questions.................nothing. Nothing at all. I pay for everything I buy with plastic or as a direct debit from checking. When I use plastic I either get points that turn into cash or in the case of Sam's Club, I get Sam's Cash which I can spend in the store. Works out pretty good for me.
I don't just use plastic for me. I have a couple of elderly neighbors and relatives who can't get around too good anymore so I do their shopping for them. Food, scripts, online stuff, doesn't matter. I will use plastic for that, and they reimburse me with a check or cash.
The rewards cash I get is nice. Goes into a CU account and from there any where I want to put it. In my opinion, anyone who has this available to them and who does not take advantage of it is foolish. It's free money. And as for me, I do not carry balances on CCs. They are paid off every month.
It's a win-win.
____________________________________
I do not want to see a cashless society, but I live in the real world. I have to do what will benefit me.
Spend some time in the tin foil hat threat and check out the posts about the IMF & the BIS. They are chugging right along and nothing that is talked about here will do squadouche to hamper them what-so-ever. And the United States is part of it.
Hopefully a cashless society won't happen in my lifetime. But no matter what, I gotta keep on keeping on.
__________________________________________
Getting ready to post a sailing vid in the maritime thread. It's pretty good, check it out.
Well, then...sad to say, you're essentially part of the problem.
At the very least, tolerating this shift.
How CBDCs go, will depend on their acceptance. If people knuckle under and accept it...now, of course, we'll be given the treatment in stages. First, introduction, with full on mediuh lackeys marveling about how WONDERFUL it is not to have to use dirty CASH. (anti)Social (in)Security and government pensioners will be treated to this new marvel, first; and then, there will be tax benefits/coersions to corporations that agree to pay this way.
Not unlike how Direct Deposit came to be.
But this is only the easy part. Once the dirty disease-riddled currency is gone...then, and only then, with no options, will we be shown the miracle of algos, of Social Credit Scores and Carbon Footprint tracking. Kobe for me, cricket-meal for thee! I'm plugged in better, to I get TWICE the meat ration you get!
Since the public will rebel at this - assaulting checkout employees or just stealing food out of self-serve groceries - we'll be back to the old-time store of a small lobby, a counter, and a grocery clerk. Back then, it was how they could do business, without prepackaging. In the New Normal, it will be how they can prevent the meat from being stolen once a checkout stand says, buyer cannot HAVE it.
So, grocery sales efficiency will go to zero. But people still need to eat, right? So we pay the added COST of our government keeping us from good food. All the clerks, locked meat cases, bonded meat movers, government security guards, government enforcers...
Yeah. It will be an unimaginable dystopian hell.
So if I can help avoid or stall it by NOT using the magic plastic, by going to a BANK, getting a large withdrawl of CASH, and MANAGING it, I will.
It'll help in the chaotic changeover, too. When they insist my railroad pension be paid in CBDCs, that's it.
I have about three months' cost of living in the cookie jar. Hopefully the situation can be un-farked by that time...if not, I'll have to sell my PMs, probably at a loss...maybe resort to highway robbery...
At the very least, tolerating this shift.
How CBDCs go, will depend on their acceptance. If people knuckle under and accept it...now, of course, we'll be given the treatment in stages. First, introduction, with full on mediuh lackeys marveling about how WONDERFUL it is not to have to use dirty CASH. (anti)Social (in)Security and government pensioners will be treated to this new marvel, first; and then, there will be tax benefits/coersions to corporations that agree to pay this way.
Not unlike how Direct Deposit came to be.
But this is only the easy part. Once the dirty disease-riddled currency is gone...then, and only then, with no options, will we be shown the miracle of algos, of Social Credit Scores and Carbon Footprint tracking. Kobe for me, cricket-meal for thee! I'm plugged in better, to I get TWICE the meat ration you get!
Since the public will rebel at this - assaulting checkout employees or just stealing food out of self-serve groceries - we'll be back to the old-time store of a small lobby, a counter, and a grocery clerk. Back then, it was how they could do business, without prepackaging. In the New Normal, it will be how they can prevent the meat from being stolen once a checkout stand says, buyer cannot HAVE it.
So, grocery sales efficiency will go to zero. But people still need to eat, right? So we pay the added COST of our government keeping us from good food. All the clerks, locked meat cases, bonded meat movers, government security guards, government enforcers...
Yeah. It will be an unimaginable dystopian hell.
So if I can help avoid or stall it by NOT using the magic plastic, by going to a BANK, getting a large withdrawl of CASH, and MANAGING it, I will.
It'll help in the chaotic changeover, too. When they insist my railroad pension be paid in CBDCs, that's it.
I have about three months' cost of living in the cookie jar. Hopefully the situation can be un-farked by that time...if not, I'll have to sell my PMs, probably at a loss...maybe resort to highway robbery...
You can easily live in the real World AND use cash. How can you be against something like a cashless society, yet participate in its implementation?
Yea, fuck the next generations.
We already knew that.
Exactly. Seems strange for people who SAY they are against a cashless society, to also do everything they can to help bring it upon us.
Yep. Had the sheep all said "fuck no!", it would have never flown.
....but sheep always go along to get along.
A cautionary tale from Australia:
Reasonable access. Adequate access. Guess who decides what is reasonable and adequate.
Michele Bullock - Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia said:
Reasonable access. Adequate access. Guess who decides what is reasonable and adequate.
The tyrants, of course.
A lot of what the Aussies and Canuks have come to accept, is - of course - unacceptable. Including an exploding Died Suddenly rate, and punishment for opinions that counter the Narrative.
I wonder if we're as softened up as they were. I was thinking about that, this morning, for some reason - how nice, how civil and orderly, Canada in the 1980s was, compared to the US. Spent many weekends in Toronto, and doing stuff I wouldn't dare do in Cleveland, Buffalo or Chicago. Like, say, a 0100 walk from a downtown hotel to any one of hundreds of bars along Yonge Street.
Walk Euclid Avenue at one o'clock, with white skin...you and your wallet will go in separate directions...even if you don't join that Spirit in the Sky in the process.
But...that "niceness" of Canadians was, somehow, leveraged to install the Davos Man's plant, Justin Castro...and then turn that nation upside down. Mark Crispin Miller reports in his Died Suddenly This Week reports, that data from Canadian vital-statistics agencies is getting harder and harder to get. For anyone.
Even as they all fall over dead of the Pfizer health-bomb, they deny and obfuscate.
So...will they draw the line at electronic government scrip? I doubt it.
I wonder if we're as softened up as they were. I was thinking about that, this morning, for some reason - how nice, how civil and orderly, Canada in the 1980s was, compared to the US. Spent many weekends in Toronto, and doing stuff I wouldn't dare do in Cleveland, Buffalo or Chicago. Like, say, a 0100 walk from a downtown hotel to any one of hundreds of bars along Yonge Street.
Walk Euclid Avenue at one o'clock, with white skin...you and your wallet will go in separate directions...even if you don't join that Spirit in the Sky in the process.
But...that "niceness" of Canadians was, somehow, leveraged to install the Davos Man's plant, Justin Castro...and then turn that nation upside down. Mark Crispin Miller reports in his Died Suddenly This Week reports, that data from Canadian vital-statistics agencies is getting harder and harder to get. For anyone.
Even as they all fall over dead of the Pfizer health-bomb, they deny and obfuscate.
So...will they draw the line at electronic government scrip? I doubt it.
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
From the link:
Small slivers of hope in the Global War on Cash.
However it may seem, the title of this article does not include a typo. It mentions the year 2022, not 2023, for the simple reason that the publication of data on payment habits in the UK has roughly a one-year lag. As such, it wasn’t until late 2023 that it became apparent that the use of cash had rebounded in 2022, for the first time in ten years.
This is potentially an important trend reversal. Until recently it seemed that the British public, with a little helpful nudging from the government, high street banks and retailers, payment card companies, fintech firms and tech giants, was intent on abandoning cash as quickly as possible. A decade ago, around 60% of payments in the UK were made using cash; by 2021, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging, e-commerce booming and the contactless revolution in full swing, that figure had slumped to 15%. As in many other countries, the amount of cash in circulation did increase during this time, but this was a sign of hoarding, not of increased payments.
At the beginning of this year, Mastercard, a company that has singled out cash as its number one enemy and whose former CEO (and now World Bank Managing Director) Ajay Banga described physical money as “public enemy number one”, unveiled the findings of a survey it had commissioned into payment trends in the UK. Those findings, the company said, pointed to a further decrease in cash usage in the UK, which aligned perfectly with the company’s broader goals, exemplified by its current slogan: “World Beyond Cash”.
www.nakedcapitalism.com
Small slivers of hope in the Global War on Cash.
However it may seem, the title of this article does not include a typo. It mentions the year 2022, not 2023, for the simple reason that the publication of data on payment habits in the UK has roughly a one-year lag. As such, it wasn’t until late 2023 that it became apparent that the use of cash had rebounded in 2022, for the first time in ten years.
This is potentially an important trend reversal. Until recently it seemed that the British public, with a little helpful nudging from the government, high street banks and retailers, payment card companies, fintech firms and tech giants, was intent on abandoning cash as quickly as possible. A decade ago, around 60% of payments in the UK were made using cash; by 2021, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging, e-commerce booming and the contactless revolution in full swing, that figure had slumped to 15%. As in many other countries, the amount of cash in circulation did increase during this time, but this was a sign of hoarding, not of increased payments.
At the beginning of this year, Mastercard, a company that has singled out cash as its number one enemy and whose former CEO (and now World Bank Managing Director) Ajay Banga described physical money as “public enemy number one”, unveiled the findings of a survey it had commissioned into payment trends in the UK. Those findings, the company said, pointed to a further decrease in cash usage in the UK, which aligned perfectly with the company’s broader goals, exemplified by its current slogan: “World Beyond Cash”.
2022: The Year That Many Brits Learnt to Love Cash Again | naked capitalism
While important victories have been scored in defence of cash this year, both in the UK and far beyond, the war against physical money continues apace.
- Messages
- 19,352
- Reaction score
- 3,582
- Points
- 288
DYODD here.
Are national governments in the Euro Area about to lose another vital piece of their economic sovereignty?
One of the more interesting and, dare I say, encouraging developments to have taken place in the payments sphere in recent years has been the gathering trend among city and state authorities in the United States to pass laws banning direct-to-customer businesses from refusing cash payments, with the state of Florida becoming the latest to join the trend. It is one of the rare slivers of hope in the ever-escalating Global War on Cash (GWoC). In Europe, a similar trend is taking place, albeit at the national level.
One major difference between Europe and the US is that cash is still the number one retail payment method in Europe, though its use diverges sharply among countries. The governments of both Switzerland and Austria, two of Europe’s biggest cash-loving countries, are considering passing laws to protect the role of cash as a means of payment. The first country to turn such ideas into policy, however, was Slovakia.
Are national governments in the Euro Area about to lose another vital piece of their economic sovereignty?
One of the more interesting and, dare I say, encouraging developments to have taken place in the payments sphere in recent years has been the gathering trend among city and state authorities in the United States to pass laws banning direct-to-customer businesses from refusing cash payments, with the state of Florida becoming the latest to join the trend. It is one of the rare slivers of hope in the ever-escalating Global War on Cash (GWoC). In Europe, a similar trend is taking place, albeit at the national level.
One major difference between Europe and the US is that cash is still the number one retail payment method in Europe, though its use diverges sharply among countries. The governments of both Switzerland and Austria, two of Europe’s biggest cash-loving countries, are considering passing laws to protect the role of cash as a means of payment. The first country to turn such ideas into policy, however, was Slovakia.