Is a 'No Cash' society a threat?

James_Green_1982

Sanctioned_Parts_List wrote: »

Real world example: while living in China, to set up my bank account, my ID, visa and so forth were recorded. When I then set up WeChat Pay and Alipay I plugged in my name and passport numbers into those apps, which were then checked against the bank's live database. Interestingly, the facial recognition cameras were only just going up around town when I left, but I've heard from friends that they now also train the system on your passport photo, and can deduct fines automatically from your WeChat balance if you, e.g. jaywalk.

WeChat and Alipay allow people to send cash to each other and to businesses far more cheaply and easily than Google/Paypal/Apple Pay manage to over here. And the Chinese government can inspect these at will.

Are these kinds of payment systems compulsory in China?
I would argue that bank accounts and digital money is now de-facto compulsory in the UK.
In theory you may be able to live your life cash only - but the system makes it very, very hard.

michaels

Suppose you want to attend a rally in London against an illegal war in the Middle East and the govt block your card payment when you try to book travel.

Or you want to buy caniboid Oil for your epileptic child and the govt is having a major anti crug posturing exercise and blocks you from doing so

Or your bank has been hacked and all accounts emptied/locked and cash is no longer a payment option?

I think it is a very dangerous path for us to go down. However I am the worst offender when it comes to not using cash having used cash back credit cards for every purchase for years.

James_Green_1982

michaels wrote: »

Suppose you want to attend a rally in London against an illegal war in the Middle East and the govt block your card payment when you try to book travel.

Or you want to buy caniboid Oil for your epileptic child and the govt is having a major anti crug posturing exercise and blocks you from doing so

Or your bank has been hacked and all accounts emptied/locked and cash is no longer a payment option?

I think it is a very dangerous path for us to go down. However I am the worst offender when it comes to not using cash having used cash back credit cards for every purchase for years.

George Orwell rightly predicted a surveillance state. But he missed the fact that citizens would lead the way by happily conducting most of the surveillance themselves.

Slightly off topic, but younger relatives tell me they don't feel relaxed enough to get drunk these days, because everyone has their smartphones out taking photos. These end up on Facebook* for all future employers to view.

*Other equally ghastly websites exist.

Sanctioned_Parts_List

James_Green_1982 wrote: »

Are these kinds of payment systems compulsory in China?

Nope. No payment system is compulsory. A large fraction of their population doesn't have a bank account at all, and still "bank" by keeping rolls of cash in a tin under their bed.

However, as you noted, it's becoming increasingly difficult not to use one of these payments systems. One of the restaurants my wife liked to visit would only accept payment through Alipay: cash not permitted. The only sensible way for me to pay my gas, electricity, internet and phone bills was through one of these apps, as the alternative was to go to the relevant organisation and queue for several hours.

So sure, using Bank of Biscuit Tin is possible, but there's strong pressure to adopt an electronic wallet of some sort instead...

(Note, I needed to link those payment systems to a bank account, as they're able to verify and handle foreign IDs. A Chinese national would be able to open one of these electronic wallets with just their national ID card, and no bank.)

Zero_Sum

Cash will remain for as long as the public want it to remain.
We could probably get rid of copper coins but the public seem to like the humble penny so it stays with us.

Mind, the other day i saw a busker with a card reader.

Pennywise

Sanctioned_Parts_List wrote: »

That part's not difficult. In Alipay, for example, you can have your phone display a QR code, the other party scans it, enters the transaction value, and authenticates it. You receive, confirm, and the money's transferred across. Takes no longer than counting change.

Assuming you're in an area with good mobile broadband!

Pennywise

Tammykitty wrote: »

My local pub was able to open up when the power was out in bad weather, but of course could only accept cash

Yep, our whole area was without power for a few days with Storm Desmond. That was a small city, two towns and several villages - over 60,000 people. Not only no power, so no cash machines, no card terminals in shops etc., but no mobile signals either for the first day or so as the mobile network was also down. Not only that, but some local telephone exchanges were down too, so no landlines. Basically, if you didn't have cash, you were screwed. People were stranded with no way of getting home, relying on pubs etc staying open overnight for someone to stay, so they weren't on the streets! Taxis were only accepting cash, the few shops that were open only accepted cash. It was 3 days before the local authorities put food vans out on the streets, so if you had no food, and no cash to buy it, you were hungry for 3 days!

da_rule

Weren’t cheques supposed to be abolished a number of years ago? But the public outcry was such that we still have them today. I can’t foresee that a cashless society will come into fruition, at least not in the UK, for a good few years yet.

Pennywise

da_rule wrote: »

I can’t foresee that a cashless society will come into fruition, at least not in the UK, for a good few years yet.

A good couple of decades more like. I have a convenience store client who still has half his sales in cash -a very long way to go before cash transactions get low enough to scrap.

DigForVictory

Is a 'No Cash' society a threat? No, it's someone's pipedream.

At some stage everyone needs the freedom of cash, the untraced and unobserved transaction, from tipping staff to brown paper envelopes.

Our existing IT infrastructure couldn't cope with fiscal tills etc let alone our legislature with all the third party intermediaries...