Is it the end of cash?

[MikeFromLFE]

Our local car parks haven’t taken cash for at least 2 years, it’s contactless or (spit) Ringo.

Why are car parking payment apps so universally shite?
I've had to use Ringo and two others that I can't remember the names of, and they're totally carp. And some councils charge you for having to use the stupid app as well.

[Polar Bear]

This morning I bought fruit and veg at the market and then some freshly baked croissants.  This cash thing is catching on.  😉

[Syd]

I’ll just leave this here.

https://time.com/4918626/money-germs-microbes-dirty/

[Polar Bear]

You are Howard Hughes and ICMFP.  👍

[Cudzoziemiec]

Tax on digital transactions in Ghana.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/apr/05/high-tech-higher-tax-ghanaians-face-punishing-new-levy-on-electronic-payments

[Adam]

I’ll just leave this here.

https://time.com/4918626/money-germs-microbes-dirty/

How well do microbes & germs live on plastic notes?

[Syd]

I’ll just leave this here.

https://time.com/4918626/money-germs-microbes-dirty/

How well do microbes & germs live on plastic notes?

Three times cleaner apparently.

https://www.lovemoney.com/news/61417/dirty-money-cleaner-polymer-notes-new-fiver

[Cudzoziemiec]

Then there’s inclusion. True, cash is insecure; cash holders miss out on interest and are unable to build up financial histories, which are essential for getting access to a wider array of financial services. That’s why “financial inclusion” usually means bringing people out of a cash-based existence and into the formal sector. But cash alone offers a universally attainable means of paying and being paid. For those who can’t or won’t get banked or go digital, what happens in a cashless future? There are an estimated 1.3 million “unbanked” adults in the UK and many more who lack either digital confidence or access. Not everyone is happy or able to wave a card, much less to buy now and pay later. Cash may be dirty, expensive and unsafe. It may aid and abet the criminal and the corrupt, but it’s also freely accessible to everyone.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/18/the-big-idea-should-we-embrace-a-cashless-society

The irony here is that cashless payments, in the form of mobile money – that's mobile as in mobile phone – were developed to make paying and being paid easier for the huge numbers of people in eg Africa and India who don't have bank accounts – and won't have in the foreseeable future due to poverty, lack of access to physical bank buildings and poor internet infrastructure in rural areas, illiteracy and absence of other forms of ID. Mobile payments allow the unbanked poor to make and receive payments without the security risk of carrying cash and without needing shiny things, education and bureaucracy. it's not cashless payments per se which exclude the unbanked but their implementation in the West – which is largely down to the dominance and power of banks.

[ian]

The last time I was in Malawi, the incidence of people wetting themselves in bank queues was front-page news. I'm not even joking.

We finally had to pay cash at the weekend, typical grumpy pub landlord uttered 'it's not worth it' for two lime and sodas (£2) but generally, he seemed of the mind that customers were an unnecessary burden on his business (still £2 for about 10p worth of ingredients and thirty seconds of his time, I expect he makes less selling two pints of beer).

[De Sisti]

When I was in a hotel in Mallorca a couple of weeks ago, the bar wouldn't accept cash, but there was a jar
near the till for tips to be placed (only cash though). Same thing happens in the UK in some pubs and cafes.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Holding a cashless festival where you also can't buy anything with your card or phone or even by bank transfer – how does this work? Instead, you put money on a wristband, which of course is worthless elsewhere. Hmm...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jul/02/tim-dowling-im-at-a-cashless-festival-why-does-it-feel-like-a-dystopian-future

[Kim]

Holding a cashless festival where you also can't buy anything with your card or phone or even by bank transfer – how does this work? Instead, you put money on a wristband, which of course is worthless elsewhere. Hmm...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jul/02/tim-dowling-im-at-a-cashless-festival-why-does-it-feel-like-a-dystopian-future

UKC Hostility were doing this in the late 90s.  The real trick was letting the middle-class students' parents assume that they'd be able to use the cashless system to buy food and bogroll and stationery from the campus shop (which was run by the Stupid Union and not part of the system), rather than just drinkohol and chips from the college bars.

[Polar Bear]

I have used three different businesses this morning and paid with cash at all of them.

Seems to me that cash is alive and well but also that there is a small section of society that support the dystopian control freak future that a cashless society helps usher in.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Holding a cashless festival where you also can't buy anything with your card or phone or even by bank transfer – how does this work? Instead, you put money on a wristband, which of course is worthless elsewhere. Hmm...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jul/02/tim-dowling-im-at-a-cashless-festival-why-does-it-feel-like-a-dystopian-future

UKC Hostility were doing this in the late 90s.  The real trick was letting the middle-class students' parents assume that they'd be able to use the cashless system to buy food and bogroll and stationery from the campus shop (which was run by the Stupid Union and not part of the system), rather than just drinkohol and chips from the college bars.

The best bit of this story was when the author of the article, a performer at the festival, discovers the Artists' Lounge – of course only after he's managed to charge up his wristband.

[lissotriton]

Plenty of festivals have been needing beer tokens for years. Its not really a new idea. And it can help to reduce queuing.
Though you may end up wasting money if you have tokens left over. Just have to drink lots on the last night...

[Kim]

Seems to me that cash is alive and well but also that there is a small section of society that support the dystopian control freak future that a cashless society helps usher in.

I think it's more the case that some businesses see an easy profit in people converting currency to arbitrary credit and pocketing the difference when it doesn't get spent.  Which is hardly a new phenomenon.  Book tokens, gift vouchers etc have been around longer than I've been alive.  Using electronics to store the tokens (or the money used to purchase them) doesn't really change any of that.  (The new expiring postage stamps now qualify, too.)

Meanwhile, a few people - like barakta - find not handling cash to be a major accessibility win.  They're probably cancelled out by the people who have problems accessing the technology, or who need tangible money to keep track of what they're spending.  As ever - the important thing is to have alternative options.

And the vast majority of people simply don't care, other than when they find they don't have a suitable payment method.


Apropos of the cashless dystopia, I was able to set up Google Pay on my phone and pay successfully when I found myself wallet-less with a full basket of shopping the other week.  Not something I'd want to use as a routine method of payment, simply because I don't want to rely on my phone, but nevertheless a handy backup option.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I wonder if there's also an element of 'setting up a proprietary system because we can and the marketing dept says it makes us cool (and the finance dept likes the locked-in element)'. I'm thinking of all the tales I read of charging electric cars...

[Kim]

I wonder if there's also an element of 'setting up a proprietary system because we can and the marketing dept says it makes us cool (and the finance dept likes the locked-in element)'. I'm thinking of all the tales I read of charging electric cars...

The electric car charger case is simply a matter of what's cheapest to implement.  A proprietary smart card reader is cheap as chips, and an app doesn't even require that.  Taking debit/credit card payments means you need a proper card payment wossname in the charger (and there are probably bank fees or something associated with it) which - combined with early cars needing relatively small amounts of (then inexpensive) electricity - is why they didn't bother at first.  Early EV drivers were mostly concerned about getting a charge, and were prepared to tolerate a lot of faffing about if it make the deployment of chargers easier.

Hire bikes (and indeed electro-scooters) are in much the same position, except unlike the EV chargers, they need to be able to take money from you if you don't return the vehicle, so contactless payment on its own seems unlikely.

(I think I've got about 4 quid of credit sitting in a Pod Point account since the summer of 2018.  Maybe at some point I'll find myself driving something that can make use of it...)

Parallels with the early days of PAYG mobile phones, when your options were to  a) phone a robot (or possibly in the really early days, a human?) and give them your credit card details  or  b) pay for a voucher in a shop.  The latter was a faff, but it was the only option to people who didn't have a credit card - particularly minors.  Websites and apps have given those of use with bank accounts more convenient options, but it's conspicuous that you can't simply wave your card at a phone and have it take contactless payment for some credit.  (As the telcos are trying to move away from the PAYG model because reasons, I don't see this ever happening.)


And yes, there's certainly a marketing departments liking apps effect.  I can pay for bus travel in the Wet Midlands using an app - something that launched about 5 minutes before they started accepting contactless payment.  To date, the only time I've used it was to claim free bus travel as part of some promotion or other.  There are good reasons for bus companies wanting to use something other than cash (it means less dwell time for the bus), and obviously you need an option for people who don't have bank accounts, but I'm not sure what the app gives you that the whatever-the-local-bus-card-thing-is-called doesn't.

[Polar Bear]

It seems to me that Kim is describing the utopian position of having many and varied ways to pay and having freedom of choice to do so according to the needs or even preferences each of us my have.

With regard to Google Pay:  I tried to set it up recently but my bank is not subscribed.  I also have Garmin Pay available on my watch but again, my bank is not subscribed.  It seems to me that by having many competing systems to pay instead of simple cash that complexity is making access even more restricted to the privileged who "have".

[Kim]

With regard to Google Pay:  I tried to set it up recently but my bank is not subscribed.  I also have Garmin Pay available on my watch but again, my bank is not subscribed.

I know very little about it, having hastily set up and used it once while wearing the wrong glasses in a busy Tescos.  I didn't realise the bank had to do something special, rather than make credit/debit card payments to Google as it would when paying for something in the app store.

I think this is one of those irregular verbs:  I establish a standard.  You practice vendor lock-in.  They are creating a monopoly.

[Cudzoziemiec]

And yes, there's certainly a marketing departments liking apps effect.  I can pay for bus travel in the Wet Midlands using an app - something that launched about 5 minutes before they started accepting contactless payment.  To date, the only time I've used it was to claim free bus travel as part of some promotion or other.  There are good reasons for bus companies wanting to use something other than cash (it means less dwell time for the bus), and obviously you need an option for people who don't have bank accounts, but I'm not sure what the app gives you that the whatever-the-local-bus-card-thing-is-called doesn't.

The First Bus app in Brizzle (presumably also in other First Bus places but I can't be sure of that) does give slightly cheaper fares than paying on the bus. I don't know how much cheaper cos I eschew buses.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It seems to me that Kim is describing the utopian position of having many and varied ways to pay and having freedom of choice to do so according to the needs or even preferences each of us my have.

With regard to Google Pay:  I tried to set it up recently but my bank is not subscribed.  I also have Garmin Pay available on my watch but again, my bank is not subscribed.  It seems to me that by having many competing systems to pay instead of simple cash that complexity is making access even more restricted to the privileged who "have".

Pretty sure all the major banks are in Google Pay – perhaps if you're with eg Triodos or the Coop it might not work – but it does also require fingerprint and/or face ID to be used.

[nicknack]

Pretty sure all the major banks are in Google Pay – perhaps if you're with eg Triodos or the Coop it might not work – but it does also require fingerprint and/or face ID to be used.

Co-op's fine. I use it quite a lot. Don't need fingerprint or face ID. You just need to have means of locking your phone. I use a pass number.

[lissotriton]

Pretty sure all the major banks are in Google Pay – perhaps if you're with eg Triodos or the Coop it might not work – but it does also require fingerprint and/or face ID to be used.

Barclays are probably the only major bank who refuse to support Google Pay. Instead they force you to use their own crappy app.

Triodos don't support Google Pay (or Apple Pay). They say they want to, but as a smaller bank it will take them longer to develop it etc.

Other option is something like Curve card, which you can link to any other bank cards, and does support Google Pay and Garmin Pay.

[SteveC]

...but I'm not sure what the app gives you that the whatever-the-local-bus-card-thing-is-called doesn't.

Not having to carry multiple cards around.