Too Much Privacy: Finnish Police Want Big Euro Notes Taken Out of Circulation

jones_supa writes The Finnish Police are concerned that larger banknotes, namely the €200 and €500 banknotes, encourage criminal activity and should therefore be removed from Finnish cash circulation. Markku Ranta-aho, head of the Money Laundering Clearing House of Finland, says criminals prefer cash because it is harder for police to track. In contrast, a record of electronic money transfers remains in the banking system, which makes the police's job considerably easier. Ranta-aho also says citizens rarely use the larger banknotes anyway, with which The Bank of Finland's advisor Kari Takala agrees. However, The Bank of Finland is skeptical about the ability of a ban on €500 banknotes to eliminate underground labor and trade in Finland. Takala suggests criminals would just switch to smaller bills. More illegal transactions take place via bank transfers, he says.

Comments

if you ban cash

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ban cash, the four bogeymen (need I mention them?) and the wobbly anarchist menace will create their own cash.

Oops, it's been already done, not once but a dozen times.

Re:if you ban cash

[fustakrakich]

The big crooks are the ones making the rules.

To their defense

[Meeni]

As a normal person I never had use of large bills like that. Even 100 is an annoyance as you have to get it accepted for change somewhere. So in essence nothing of value would be lost. Then the claim that it would be effective at curbing illegal business is not very strong either.

Re:To their defense

[ShanghaiBill]

It would do nothing to curb criminality

The best way to curb criminality is to have fewer crimes. Most of the "crimes" involving the exchange of cash are transactions between consenting adults, for goods and services that should not be illegal in the first place. The solution to oppression and prohibition is not more oppression and prohibition.

Re:To their defense

[TWX]

The larger the bill, the more profitable it is to counterfeit it, and the less likely that a shop clerk will recognize it for a counterfeit due to the small number of them handled over time.

Bill-denomination is something that's interested me for awhile actually; it seems from my limited view of time like in the United States, the $20 has been the standard bill for 30+ years. I can remember as a child, my dad sending me into the convenience store to prepay so the clerk would activate the fuel pump, and usually going back for just a couple dollars change at the most. I wonder if stores' unwillingness to take $50 and $100 bills actually helps work against inflation as consumers end up putting a relative-value compared to the $20 on items for sale.

I've also wondered about the $1 bill in the same way, for lesser goods and vending machines and the like.

Re:To their defense

[kilfarsnar]

In contrast, as a normal person, I've used EUR 100 and EUR 500 bills regularly to take care of, well, large transactions that need to be confirmed and delivered faster than a bank transfer would allow (and when the people involved rile at paying 3% for credit card fees, or aren't set up to take credit cards in the first place), like paying vendors, or hotel bills outside of big cities.

This is another good point. Without cash, every transaction will have an added tax paid to the payment processor. Think your "no-fee" credit card is really free? You're paying for it one way or another in the form of higher prices. Visa, or whomever, has to wet its beak in every transaction. It's one more way the financial industry skims off the top of the economy. They would love to get rid of cash. Then every time anyone bought anything they'd get paid.

Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you start banning things just to make the job of police easier, you know that your government has at least a few problems with freedom. If freedom means that police have a harder job, then so be it.

Warped logic.

[Anonymous Coward]

In contrast, a record of electronic money transfers remains in the banking system, which makes the police's job considerably easier.

Yes because our lives should be dedicated to making the police's job considerably easier. Welcome to the new fascist state, it's the same as the old one. It just doesn't have all the goose stepping and death camps.....yet.

Re:USA 1969

[Anonymous Coward]

And with inflation, it's today as if they retired everything above the $10 note in 1969.

Re:USA 1969

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"I don't need it; therefore nobody else does."

People reserve unto themselves the right to purchase things anonymously. It's a check on government power, a kind of spying.

How disturbed I am at the surity with which people view modern government as nearly perfected, and worthy of such spy powers, when nothing in all human history should give you confidence in that.

treatment denied

[Anonymous Coward]

we see your purchased some burgers and fries when your doctor told you not to. services denied / co-pay raised.

but I only bought those to give to the homeless...

DENIED

Re:Not only in Finland.

[kilfarsnar]

Not only in Finland! I've heard that in the United States aswell the police is very proactive about taking notes out of circulation.

Civil forfeiture has got to be the biggest truckload of bullshit I have heard in a while. So now the state can just take my money because of what they think I might do with it? How can we be expected to respect law enforcement when they pull crap like that?

Re:Not only in Finland.

[fnj]

It's legal tender. They will take it and like it, or I will call the cops.

Re:Not only in Finland.

[ultranova]

How can we be expected to respect law enforcement when they pull crap like that?

Because they'll kill you if you don't.

The problem with getting though with crime is that it means the police is expected to be though. And this is how though guys act. This is, always has been, and always will be, the price you pay for demanding "thoughness": you'll get fascism.

Americans brought this on themselves.