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A cashless society - peer to peer payments?

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  • Type_45
    Type_45 Posts: 1,723 Forumite
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    AlanP_2 said:
    Type_45 said:
    Type_45 said:
    eskbanker said:
    There are already many more ways of making payments between individuals and businesses than have ever been in place before, and it's only to be expected that over time some will become less popular for a whole variety of reasons.  Those who are minded to see this as some sort of Establishment conspiracy will just have to get used to the idea but can perhaps wave some 'stop the steal' placards about or join some crypto cults if it makes them feel better....
    A conspiracy requires secrecy. The moves towards the abolishion of cash is openly planned and available online.

    The Bank of England has a page on it's website about the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) it is planning. 

    CBDC will replace the pound. It will eventually be entirely digital and cash will be phased out.

    Once that's in place, the BoE/government will know where every £ is. They'll know who has what. Who has paid whom.

    They'll be no privacy.

    These aren't my words. These are the words of the BIS and supranational bodies who are openly working to make this happen.
    The BoE site says no such thing.
    The CBDC is entirely a discussion idea, there has been no decision made on it and it's still in the realms of if it is even possible to do so. The whole point is that the BoE is considering offering a service to go alongside other payment methods due to the fact that consumers are choosing to stop using cash which is still around 28% of transactions (as of 2018). All this tinfoil hat nonsense about governments tracking your every penny and wiping out cash is laughable - more so because the people who talk about it almost always have facebook, a mobile phone, supermarket points card, etc all of which mean you can be tracked to the nearest inch and second. If you want to do everything in cash because you think the government cares that you paid someone to wash your car then feel free to do so.
    Just want to first of all call you out on the "28% of transactions are cash" BS.

    There is no way of knowing how many cash transactions there are each day. I may have made 1,000 cash transactions today, and your stats won't know about them. That's the beauty of cash.

    The only cash stats you know of are the ones reported by shops. The peer to peer cash payments are not known, and I would imagine are in the millions each day/week.

    Cash is king. And if there was one thing you could give people to give them freedom it would be cash.
    If those are commercial transactions, for goods and/or services (as oppposed to gifts) then the recipent will surely be recording them in their accounting system and thus they are recorded.

    If, on the other hand, you mean small cash payments are an easy way for small traders to avoid tax / VAT etc. then you are correct, the hidden economy has been around for years and will not go away even if cash does.

    When I ran my own business cash was the worst payment method for me to accept as the charges for paying it into a business bank account were higher than for cards / cheques (in those days) and BACS - let alone the time wasted going to a branch to queue up and pay it in.
    How will the hidden economy continue without cash? What form of payment will they use?

    This is the point of this thread.
  • Apodemus
    Apodemus Posts: 3,410 Forumite
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    I had to use cash in the village shop on Sunday because their card-reader was playing-up.  On checking, I see that this was the first time I had used a bank-note since early May last year.  As far as I can see, the move to a cashless society is a bottom-up thing, not a nasty conspiracy from above!  :)   
  • Type_45
    Type_45 Posts: 1,723 Forumite
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    Apodemus said:
    I had to use cash in the village shop on Sunday because their card-reader was playing-up.  On checking, I see that this was the first time I had used a bank-note since early May last year.  As far as I can see, the move to a cashless society is a bottom-up thing, not a nasty conspiracy from above!  :)   
    Then you aren't paying attention.
  • eskbanker
    eskbanker Posts: 37,134 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Type_45 said:
    Apodemus said:
    I had to use cash in the village shop on Sunday because their card-reader was playing-up.  On checking, I see that this was the first time I had used a bank-note since early May last year.  As far as I can see, the move to a cashless society is a bottom-up thing, not a nasty conspiracy from above!  :)   
    Then you aren't paying attention.
    Go on then, let's play along for a bit more: who specifically has prevented you from using cash when you've wanted to, and under whose orders have they done so?
  • Type_45
    Type_45 Posts: 1,723 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    eskbanker said:
    Type_45 said:
    Apodemus said:
    I had to use cash in the village shop on Sunday because their card-reader was playing-up.  On checking, I see that this was the first time I had used a bank-note since early May last year.  As far as I can see, the move to a cashless society is a bottom-up thing, not a nasty conspiracy from above!  :)   
    Then you aren't paying attention.
    Go on then, let's play along for a bit more: who specifically has prevented you from using cash when you've wanted to, and under whose orders have they done so?
    You're not "playing along". You're creating a strawman.


  • Gadfium
    Gadfium Posts: 763 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Type_45 said:
    AlanP_2 said:
    Same way many of us do now - card / contactless and/or bank transfer and/or one of the phone pay systems
    All of which carry fees (or can be made to) and are traceable.

    If I give you £10 for washing my car it is between us and cannot be interfered with or monitored.
    AKA, the "black economy" or tax evasion. Why should someone expect income to be untraceable?

  • Linton
    Linton Posts: 18,154 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Hung up my suit!
    Apodemus said:
    I had to use cash in the village shop on Sunday because their card-reader was playing-up.  On checking, I see that this was the first time I had used a bank-note since early May last year.  As far as I can see, the move to a cashless society is a bottom-up thing, not a nasty conspiracy from above!  :)   
    Agree 100%.  I use a debit card or BACs for all my expenditure if I can, and when I can't I use notes.  It avoids the need to carry coins except for a small bag of "car park tokens" kept in the car.  Any coins I get in change go immediately into the charity box.

    This makes my finances much easier to monitor and control as I can directly download my bank statement into MsMoney and automatically get a categorised list of all expenditure.
  • Type_45
    Type_45 Posts: 1,723 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Gadfium said:
    Type_45 said:
    AlanP_2 said:
    Same way many of us do now - card / contactless and/or bank transfer and/or one of the phone pay systems
    All of which carry fees (or can be made to) and are traceable.

    If I give you £10 for washing my car it is between us and cannot be interfered with or monitored.
    AKA, the "black economy" or tax evasion. Why should someone expect income to be untraceable?

    Someone would probably expect it because it's been that way since the creation of money thousands of years ago.

    If you wash my car and I give you £10 you will declare it to the tax man, will you? 
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
    1,000 Posts Second Anniversary Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 8 January 2021 at 1:48PM
    Type_45 said:
    Type_45 said:
    eskbanker said:
    There are already many more ways of making payments between individuals and businesses than have ever been in place before, and it's only to be expected that over time some will become less popular for a whole variety of reasons.  Those who are minded to see this as some sort of Establishment conspiracy will just have to get used to the idea but can perhaps wave some 'stop the steal' placards about or join some crypto cults if it makes them feel better....
    A conspiracy requires secrecy. The moves towards the abolishion of cash is openly planned and available online.

    The Bank of England has a page on it's website about the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) it is planning. 

    CBDC will replace the pound. It will eventually be entirely digital and cash will be phased out.

    Once that's in place, the BoE/government will know where every £ is. They'll know who has what. Who has paid whom.

    They'll be no privacy.

    These aren't my words. These are the words of the BIS and supranational bodies who are openly working to make this happen.
    The BoE site says no such thing.
    The CBDC is entirely a discussion idea, there has been no decision made on it and it's still in the realms of if it is even possible to do so. The whole point is that the BoE is considering offering a service to go alongside other payment methods due to the fact that consumers are choosing to stop using cash which is still around 28% of transactions (as of 2018). All this tinfoil hat nonsense about governments tracking your every penny and wiping out cash is laughable - more so because the people who talk about it almost always have facebook, a mobile phone, supermarket points card, etc all of which mean you can be tracked to the nearest inch and second. If you want to do everything in cash because you think the government cares that you paid someone to wash your car then feel free to do so.
    Just want to first of all call you out on the "28% of transactions are cash" BS.

    There is no way of knowing how many cash transactions there are each day. I may have made 1,000 cash transactions today, and your stats won't know about them. That's the beauty of cash.

    The only cash stats you know of are the ones reported by shops. The peer to peer cash payments are not known, and I would imagine are in the millions each day/week.

    Cash is king. And if there was one thing you could give people to give them freedom it would be cash.
    If it's BS, please provide evidence that supports your claim.

    As it happens, you can't as your own argument defeats you - you don't know what the real total is precisely because, as you say, there is no way to know, so 28% could be extremely accurate. We know for a fact that in terms of transactions, it's declining, it was 28% of transactions in 2018, 23% in 2019, with Covid, I suspect it'll be much lower this year. We also know for a fact that a survey (mentioned on that link) show 14% of the UK either haven't used cash or used it just once a month on average in the last year - that's 7.4m people, up from 2.9m in 2016. 25% of 18-24 and 24% of 25-34 used cash once a month or less. Just 2.1m people "mainly" use cash

    None of which changes the fact the government / BoE are not trying to replace cash with a digital currency to track everyone, try and focus on the main parts of your argument instead of trying to move the goalposts 
  • eskbanker
    eskbanker Posts: 37,134 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Type_45 said:
    eskbanker said:
    Type_45 said:
    Apodemus said:
    I had to use cash in the village shop on Sunday because their card-reader was playing-up.  On checking, I see that this was the first time I had used a bank-note since early May last year.  As far as I can see, the move to a cashless society is a bottom-up thing, not a nasty conspiracy from above!  :)   
    Then you aren't paying attention.
    Go on then, let's play along for a bit more: who specifically has prevented you from using cash when you've wanted to, and under whose orders have they done so?
    You're not "playing along". You're creating a strawman.
    No I'm not, I'm just expecting you to provide some sort of supporting evidence that demonstrably reducing cash usage is caused by some sort of diktat from above rather than lower demand, if you're rejecting the proposition that lower cash usage is being driven bottom-up, i.e. people choosing not to use it.
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