I don't even think it's an age thing. The government estimates that there are over 5 million adults in the UK who are functionally illiterate.
When you see figures like that, thats where all the utopian dreams and predictions all fall down.
If you went down to my local on a night when they used to be open I could introduce you to a good few people who I reckon come into this catagory. And these aren't pensioners. These are working blokes. Tradesmen. And they're not skint either. They deal exclusively in cash. I bet they don't even have bank accounts. I've never seen one produce anything other than notes in the pub.
Talk to them about a 'cashless society' and they'd laugh you out of the place
I guess no one has ever been at a till waiting for someone to fish out all their change?
obviously, because they are the #1 reason why going cashless is a good idea 🤣Talk to them about a ‘cashless society’ and they’d laugh you out of the place
I know, but taking every single bank note out of circulation is the only way you're ever going to do it. Even then, they'll probably set up some bartering style market in US dollars or golden eggs or something.
Thats why a cashless society is simply never going to happen
Post office no longer open new accounts and are slowly trying to ‘shut down’ all existing ones. It’s part of the deal they did with the banks, postoffice cant operate as a bank it’s self. One reason so many high st banks are shutting branches is that you can do 99% of the same stuff at your local post office now.
It's only an example. The point being if we wanted to go cashless it's pretty easy to do. Currently we're in a weird middle ground where large parts of society are going cashless but we're happy to leave people (the poor) behind. Just look at how many bank branches are closing (as there's not enough demand) and the outcry over the few who still want them. It's just shouting at the waves of progress to turn back.....
It’s also a private company so the gov can’t force people to use it. There are also lots of people who can’t get or even apply for bank accounts – they used to be able to open a post office AC (no more).
It's a private company heavily regulated eg they can't make any changes to delivery schedules without permission. So very easy to make them support bank accounts if we wanted.
The government estimates that there are over 5 million adults in the UK who are functionally illiterate.
And most of these people can manage cash, which means they're not complete vegetables and have some basic numeric skills. Teaching then to tap a card to pay for things is doable etc. It will take some effort, but it's possible.
You're assuming they want to.
You’re assuming they want to.
I don't actually care what they want to do - we all have to do things we don't necessarily want to like pay taxes, stick to speed limits (ok most don't) etc etc.
The point being if we wanted to go cashless it’s pretty easy to do.
I would suggest that it will be difficult as it requires primary legislation to force private companies to provide low-cost banking for the poorer parts of society who are disproportionately affected by any charges on basic accounts. (EDIT MSE recommends 3 providers for basic accounts and one of those will try to place you onto a standard account).
They are also likely to have problems if several direct debits bounce over a period of time as the banks can and do withdraw the facility. Which then gets the lucky person the opportunity to pay for their fuel by pre-payment card at a higher rate than the rest of us.
I can't see companies falling over themselves to provide these accounts with the extra restrictions to avoid reducing people to penury. The government could do it but at the arrival of the next occupant of no.10 who doesn't hold with supporting the poorer sections of society, the facility will be sold off to their mates and we would have to re-invent the wheel.
Cash works very well for the poorer members of society, you know exactly where you are financially and you spend the little that you have on the things that you need (though the choice between heat or food towards the end of a winter month isn't a great one). (EDIT 2 The first hit on Google for a basic account (thinkmoney) want £10 a month as fees for operating the account or 2% of a 25 year old couples UC income of £488).
(I earn somewhere between minimum wage and living wage per hour, fortunately I was in well paid employment for the first 30 years and I'm married to a high earning person. I have a vague handle on the vagaries of the benefit system from family and personal experience but that was over 10 years ago now and it's not got any better since then).
I don’t actually care what they want to do – we all have to do things we don’t necessarily want to like pay taxes, stick to speed limits (ok most don’t) etc etc.
How exactly do you intend to enforce your cashless fascist state?
Death squads executing people in the street for possession of a grubby tenner? Dawn raids kicking peoples doors in to unearth a secret stash of pound coins?
How exactly do you intend to enforce your cashless fascist state?
make it easier to use cashless than anything else. people are inherently lazy. no death squads required.
This is your classic middleclasstrackworld thread
make it easier to use cashless than anything else.
Ease of use isn't the issue
Not everyone exists in a comfortable world of easy access to credit, 0% balance transfers on credit cards and Audi's on PCP deals
These things are luxuries, not rights
The issue is that banks have no intention of providing a service to people they can't make money out of ie: those at the bottom of society. If they do provide it, they will charge for it, so where on earth is the incentive for the poor to use cashless when they can just use cash?
@Sandwich has just explained why poorer people prefer using cash. Its simple and easy to keep track of
people are inherently lazy
Laziness is a luxury some can't afford. Its an expensive and time consuming business being poor in the UK (see pre-paid energy cards comment above)
It amazes me how out of touch some people on here are with the reality of the lives lived by others
It’s a private company heavily regulated eg they can’t make any changes to delivery schedules without permission. So very easy to make them support bank accounts if we wanted.
Untrue, royal mail are heavily regulated (part of the privatisation and keeping the royal part of the name), but post office are a seperate private company they don't have delivery schedules because they don't deliver it. You or the gov can't make them do anything they don't want and the deal they've done with the banks required them not to operate any of their own banking.
If the gov wanted everyone to go cashless they would need to provide or ensure that everyone could, I'd expect a conservative gov would introduce legislation that forces private banks to legally provide a bank account for all, a labour one would introduce a public service/facilities
make it easier to use cashless than anything else.
Which is the approach the banks have taken (as it makes them a great deal of money), first with chip and pin, and then with contactless. There are plans to open contactless to any amount with biometric security readers built into the card rather than using your pin. So you could more easily buy a car with a swipe of your card rather than entering four numbers.
Your daughters ice skating coaches don’t have card machines? For gods sake, man! What kind of third world backwater do you live in?
Well it's not like Pingit hasn't existed for 8 years now is it?
Like I said, you're just looking for reasons for it to not work when in fact there is no good reason for it not to.
Like I said, you’re just looking for reasons for it to not work when in fact there is no good reason for it not to.
...for you, maybe?
Others lives and situations are different, as described above. Whats an advantage to you could cause further hardship to others, and certainly offers them no tangible benefits.
People make their own choices. You seem annoyed they are making ones you disagree with
The issue is that banks have no intention of providing a service to people they can’t make money out of ie: those at the bottom of society. If they do provide it, they will charge for it, so where on earth is the incentive for the poor to use cashless when they can just use cash?
So the government tells them to provide the service as a condition of operating. It's not that complicated, they already have a whole load of obligations to fulfill that cost them money. They could be obliged to provide a charge-free debit account (with no overdraft facility) and online services limited to checking your balance.
So the government tells them to provide the service as a condition of operating.
Can you see this particular government asking, let alone telling, the banks to provide a service to those at the bottom end of society that they won't make any money out of, and would actually probably cost them to provide?
No... me neither
Can you see this particular government asking, let alone telling, the banks to provide a service to those at the bottom end of society that they won’t make any money out of, and would actually probably cost them to provide?
No… me neither
If by doing so it removes or greatly reduces the need for minting/printing new cash, and storing, transporting, securing existing cash and destroying worn out cash. Both for the Gov/BoE and the other banks.
My current account and credit card are with the same bank that my parents dragged me to to open a junior saver when I was at primary school. It came with a nicely finished paying in/statement book, and a plastic money box. That must have cost more than a new peice of plastic with a chip in it every 3 years.
Why would they not want to grab some future customers?
Why would they not want to grab some future customers?
What are those customers worth to them? Thats all they care about.
When they gave you your money box, they were potentially giving it to the next Jeff Bezos
The occupants of most corporate city boardrooms would sooner see benefits claimants used as forced labour, or possibly the foundations for buildings, than provide them with bank accounts
Can you see this particular government asking, let alone telling, the banks to provide a service to those at the bottom end of society that they won’t make any money out of, and would actually probably cost them to provide?
No, but then I don't see cash dying out for at least another 20 years. But I do think it will die out, and in my lifetime.
What are those customers worth to them? Thats all they care about.
they are a customer. its the first step to geting them in.
we're talking about a card that you use in place of cash. Pay in your wage/benefits, get a card that you can swipe in your local shop/pub/energy meter.
once they have got one of those, the step up to a proper current account, with the ability to do online shopping, direct debits, a bit of an overdraft etc is a much smaller step. and they are much more likely to go to you rather than a rival bank. (and far cheaper than staffing a building on every local highstreet hoping for walk ins).
Some of us could usefully follow Jack Monroe on Twitter and read some of her previous articles at The Guardian site.
New readers start here, you'll need a bit of time as it covers 7 and a bit years and you'll need to winnow out the articles from the recipes.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/10/austerity-poverty-frugality-jack-monroe
A searing look at the choices the modern day poor in Great Britain are faced with daily (things like am I eating or do the kids stay warm tonight).
watching the poor starve is many a Tory’s wet dream
I thought it was watching them get on their bikes and make something of themselves?
More generally, I just wanted to say that the idea that the poor and the elderly are incapable of using a card or phone to pay for things seems a bit silly when their benefits are paid electronically.
How are the drug barons and dealers going to manage in a cashless society ? I'd love to see it happen and force some of them around here out of their blacked out Range Rovers and fancy gated properties.
Bitcoin. They'll be fine.How are the drug barons and dealers going to manage in a cashless society ?
As an aside, while we're talking about drug dealers, if you want to see the opposite of a cashless society in action then watch the documentary 'Cocaine Cowboys' about the more innocent, pre-cartel era of coke smuggling into Miami.
One Miami branch of the bank of Panama was taking more cash deposits in a day than every other bank branch in America combined, and some guys were buying fleets of Mercs and even Learjets with suitcases full of notes, no questions asked
To those who keep saying drug dealers will be put out of business by going cashless...
Bags of the stuff are quite hard to hide during a police raid. And have laundering issues to contend with. Bitcoins much easier. Paying by transferring crypto currency from one mobile telephone to another would seem much better for the dealers?
.
[Edit] beaten to it
Can you see this particular government asking, let alone telling, the banks to provide a service to those at the bottom end of society that they won’t make any money out of, and would actually probably cost them to provide?
No… me neither
Nope, but at some point we might get a sensible government....
More generally, I just wanted to say that the idea that the poor and the elderly are incapable of using a card or phone to pay for things seems a bit silly when their benefits are paid electronically.
There are several issues.
The poor aren't incapable but they are excluded as banks don't really want their business - they make money out of mortgages and overdrafts and the (real) poor aren't a good investment.
The elderly are just reluctant to change and moan a lot about loosing the Post Office etc (which is fair enough as they like the social aspect).
Some links on financial exclusion (all fixable if only anyone, in power, cared).
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldfinexcl/132/13206.htm
https://medium.com/@albertoarenaza/whos-financially-excluded-in-the-uk-7695bf44b315
it is already a law to do it, part of the The Payment Accounts Regulations 2015 - introduced by the tories (although admittedly to align with EU law)
There's only hardship because the infrastructure isn't right rather than it not existing though. Daft excuses like the post office no longer offering bank accounts are a simple piece of legislation away from being fixed. As for business folk who only deal in cash, they would very quickly learn to adapt.
Don't get me wrong, I'm aware the technically illiterate would need accommodating but it's not hard to imagine the savings would pay for any special accommodations. I don't buy your argument that it's any easier to keep track of though, the difference is a number on the screen vs a number in their hand, you can already allocate cash to a pot if you want. Old folk already manage to use bus passes just fine and it would be a simple matter to add 2fa to a vulnerable persons account to safeguard against doorstep scammers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55748964
Saw this today - I guess there's some set up tech knowhow needed...
Anybody got a financially imprudent identical twin?
What happens when someone works out how to spoof your face? Do you just ask for a replacement?
https://findbiometrics.com/biometrics-news-researchers-use-tape-and-glasses-to-spoof-face-id-liveness-detection/
What happens when you gravel rash your face or need a patch over your eye because you got a splinter in it?
Biometrics are not the answer to this sort of question, they're best used as an additional factor to something you have (phone, card) or something you know (PIN, password).
patch over your eye
Aaargh, ye be worried about piracy?
that's what we have already surely... phone + FaceID? What am I missing?Biometrics are not the answer to this sort of question, they’re best used as an additional factor to something you have (phone, card)
I thought it was watching them get on their bikes and make something of themselves?
I had to live that policy, and all it did was promote homelessness.
Live 4 weeks in your home city, then be forced to move somewhere else for a maximum of 2 weeks. No place to stay, you arrive in a strange city and end up sleeping rough or in a scary night shelter. You have to find accommodation that took dhss, but although the social security had lists of who and where, they wouldnt give you them, so you had to traipse around asking at every B&B. No sorry, no sorry,no sorry,no sorry.....
****g tories. Corruption is their catchphrase.
Tories/Turds
2 conjoined words beginning with t, ending in S.
Murray
What happens when you gravel rash your face or need a patch over your eye because you got a splinter in it?
The person in the news article has a face mask on. While I agree bio-metrics aren't the silver bullet, the first pic proves some of your argument wrong.
Anybody got a financially imprudent identical twin?
I don't know whether he's financially imprudent or not - but I look forward to him paying for all my takeaway coffee! I like to tell the story about being in China a few years ago. I had taken some cash with me and went to pay for a coffee at about 11am. The barista had to go any get someone to open the back office to get cash to pay me change. I was literally the first person that day (and it was busy) to pay cash in a coffee shop at 11am. Of course depending on your views you may not want such a situation where the government can also trace every penny you ever spend and know if you are evading tax, (or if you are government employee that your weren't working at 11am as you were buying coffee).
mother & father in-law are cash only. they're the type who keep a couple of G stashed under the mattress!
christmas and birthdays for us and the kids we get cash gifts. or we buy for the kids online and they gives us the cash! i even have to shop for them online and they give me cash back!!
they are not particularly ancient or steadfast, just have a staunch distrust and disregard for any of this virtual money business, or divulging any personal info. They have mobile phones, braodband, ipad etc - but they go into the post office to pay their bills!! supermarket, stood at the checkout peeling of pound notes to pay with! holidays, cars, tradesmen you name it - cash.
i have even set up a Monzo account with £100 quid in it just so they can try paying for things online or contactlessly - and really easy to use app to show them how easy and safe it is - never been touched!!
they'll be screwed!
Proposed increase in contactless limit to £100 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55826118 - well actually that's the limit the FCA is looking at, card issuers might not lift it to that if it does go through.
Now that contactless is always online to the issuer (with some limited exceptions e.g. transit) the fraud risk is very low. I'd expect most UK issuers to go with the £100 limit.
Note the limit doesn't exist with Apple Pay / Google Pay as long as your phone has been unlocked.
Reminds me of the time I went to Sweden and wanted to get a slice of takeaway pizza late at night. The guy wouldn't accept cards (at least not my card) so I had to go and get cash. Then I presented him with a 500kr note for which he didn't have change! Lol.
It probably is yes, but I'd resist any move to try and do away with it entirely. It's always good to have a backup if systems go down or for some other unforeseen reason. I encourage anyway to always have a small amount of cash to hand.
It probably is yes, but I’d resist any move to try and do away with it entirely. It’s always good to have a backup if systems go down or for some other unforeseen reason. I encourage anyway to always have a small amount of cash to hand.
anybody know the situation in Texas?
As a vegetarian I am all for getting rid of the new cash, in 2021 do we really need to be using bits of animal to make paper notes?
