Sweden Tries To Halt Its March To Total Cashlessness (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A key committee of Swedish lawmakers wants to force the country's biggest banks to handle cash in an effort to halt the nation's march toward complete cashlessness. Parliament's Riksbank committee, which is in the process of reviewing the central bank law, proposed making it mandatory for banks to offer cash withdrawals and handle daily receipts. The requirement would apply to banks that provide checking accounts and have more than 70 billion kronor ($8 billion) in deposits from the Swedish public, according to a report.

The lawmakers said there needs to be "reasonable access to those services in all of Sweden," and that 99 percent of Swedes should have a maximum distance of 25 kilometers (16 miles) to the nearest cash withdrawal. The requirement doesn't state how banks should offer those services, and lenders can choose whether to use a third party, machines or over-the-counter services. The move is a response to Sweden's rapid transformation as it becomes one of the most cashless societies in the world. That's led to concerns that some people are finding it increasingly difficult to cope without access to mobile phones or bank cards. There are also fears around what would happen if the digital payments systems suddenly crashed.

Comments

Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they should just make do with cheques in emergencies.

Re:Check it

[vlad30]

This is prudent considering that for instance Australia has had several large outages including one that took out the Nataional Austalia Bank EFTPOS system leaving many business unable to trade and people unable to purchase in fact we have a page to help with wether a company is up or not aussieoutages.com and not just blocked with the government site blocks.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

and how do merchants verify funds when accepting them? they're processed at point-of-sale like a debit or credit card. if 'the system' is 'down', it's down for everything that isn't cold, hard cash.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

and how do merchants verify funds when accepting them?

That is an extremely recent innovation. Merchants accepted cheques for a century prior to that without any such system.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

Nobody in Sweden has written a cheque in at least 20 years. The banks here cannot even process them any more, basically.

Re:Check it

[LostMyBeaver]

What is a cheque?

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually can, they need to be able to process cheques from foreign banks - they are just telling the customers that they can't.
"Processing" a cheque is as much as entering the numbers and calling a clearing center.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is quite a bit more than just that. Due to AML regulations and other things, cheques have to be verified and this process can take several weeks. Last time I personally cashed a cheque was when I received a tax refund from the IRS in 2013. It took my bank 4 weeks to clear it and it cost me about $50. So, while yes they can process cheques, they don't want to because of all the work involved.

Re: Check it

[bn-7bc]

Allmost no one in sweedn has a cheque. Book anymore, I suspect it is due to the cost of using said cheques and the fac that any place you mght want to use them (with the posibuility of the local bank branch) probably had not seen a cheque in years and somost if not all emploees probably has little to no idea how to deal with them, another issue is that the pos probably dose not have sn easely accesable way to register a cheque payment

Re: Check it

[bn-7bc]

Holy s*** are cheques that slow or do you/the IRS youse a crappy bank, or is it a combo? And why does the irs not just simply depossit what they owe you into your a bank account of your choosing? It might be wrong for me to speculste, but might this jus be anotherbexample uf the US not realy keepinhg up with the times, in poth Sweden and borway (and my guess is the most of rest of western europe) prople get refund deposeted directly, what makes this so hard in the us? Hmm Iâ(TM)ve heard a roumer thst in the us it is the reciver of funds rather than the payer that needs to initiate a transfer, is this correct and if so why?

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the IRS cannot (or at least couldn't back then) make direct deposit to Swedish bank accounts. And yes while the Swedish tax authorities makes direct deposits, I doubt they do it to U.S. bank accounts.

Re: Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

This wasn't just any local branch, it was Nordea's main office on Sveavägen in downtown Stockholm.

Re: Check it

[Dog-Cow]

The IRS also won't do DD for previous-year filings. I have no idea, why not, though. When I got my refund check, I used a currency exchange which deposited the amount directly in my local account. I don't know if they had to sit on the check until it cleared, but I had my money in a couple hours.

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

That does not matter. Nordea still has to follow AML regulations etc. Cheques are a so 20th century.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

Something to confound the clueless with.

You can go back to watching the Kardashians now.

Re: Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

You evidently missed my point, then, which was: This wasn't some kid fresh out of school in Luleå, it was one of the managers at the bank's largest customer-facing office in the nation's capital.

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is, your point was not a point but also a missed point. Doesn't matter which branch office you go to, the procedure for handling cheques is the same. They are sent to the Head Quarters for verification and other things. Swedish banks don't want to handle cheques because of the huge overhead involved.

Re:Check it

[Joce640k]

Merchants accepted cheques for a century prior to that without any such system.

Sure, but only because the plebs didn't have cheque books.

(or even bank accounts)

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

It doubt there are still banks that accept or issue cheques. Shops would probably also have no idea what to do with them.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

untrue, cold papery cash works to

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you remember the 1980s? Pretty much everyone had checkbooks and the system worked just fine.

Re:Check it

[terrycarlino]

In the U.S. the Expedited Funds Availability Act requires that checks be cleared in three business days unless it is a new account or there is a power failure. (Yes the last one is a specific exemption.) In that case it must still be cleared in a week.

There are other exceptions to the law, but they are in the customer's favor. Cashier's checks, Postal money orders, U.S. Treasury checks or checks drawn against a Federal Reserve Bank or any local government must be cleared in a day, based on the premise that such checks will never bounce.

This law was passed specifically to prevent banks from sitting on checks in an age when computers make it possible for a bank to check with another bank anywhere in the world in just seconds. I would have thought that consumer friendly Europe would have taken care of this problem years ago.

Re:Check it

[cayenne8]

What is a cheque?

I think it is something similar and related to a "check"....

I've often used a check book to write a check, but I've never heard of a cheque book before...?

I guess another one of those unique European misspellings.

;)

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws are only created on things that affect enough people to rise to that level of importance.
I don't think cheques were really used much anywhere besides France in Europe, but nowadays they have essentially died out.
Even in France in the high times, only businesses were really recipients of cheques, so it's not really a consumer thing.
We got a law about how fast wire transfers must clear instead. I guess that is kind of the equivalent.

Re:Check it

[dave420]

Apart from the rampant, rampant fraud the cards were brought in to mitigate, they were perfect!

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's English, as opposed to some colonial colloquialism.

Re:Check it

[dargaud]

Huh? How do you give someone (not a business) a large amount of money ? Say for renting a vacation place ? Even more so, how do you give a warranty cheque, you know, the kind that you can tear up at the end ?

Re:Check it

[Rhipf]

It was rather difficult even in the 80s to find a place that accepted out of town checks (excluding mailed checks but those usually had to clear before items shipped).

Re:Check it

[Rhipf]

It is not related to a "check" at all. Although you could check your cheque book I suppose.

8-)

Re: Check it

[pnutjam]

Do you have kids in school? In American schools I need to write checks for everything. School lunch, spirit wear, book fees, field trip fees, yearbooks, etc.. Sometimes there is an online payment portal, but often it has additional fees to use.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

In Sweden it is very easy to transfer money. You can use a service like Swish (similar to Venmo in the US) to transfer from your phone. Also, pretty much everyone uses online banking and it's very easy to transfer money to another person's account.

Writing checks is ancient, and it's kind of embarrassing that we still use them so heavily in the US (not to mention those time you end up behind a person at the grocery checkout who is paying with a check. Arrrghhh!!!!)

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

*Colockialism

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

He's lying. The Swedish baking system is much more nationalistic than what most of the world is used to. They really don't like cashing foreign checks because they do not have adequate ways of processing foreign transfers efficiently the way other first world nations do. Checks still exist in various forms. They just aren't used much, exactly like the rest of the world.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a formalized IOU.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? How do you give someone (not a business) a large amount of money ? Say for renting a vacation place

Bank transfer. How else?

Even more so, how do you give a warranty cheque, you know, the kind that you can tear up at the end ?

I have no idea what that is. Where I'm from, warranties do not involve cheques. Keeping the receipt is sufficient.

Re: Check it

[nitehawk214]

Writing a personal check is giving anyone that sees it the ability to drain your account. All you need is the account and routing number. The name on the check does not need to match.

One stolen / fake drivers license later, free money!

Re: Check it

[Type44Q]

"Warranty" in this case is clearly referring to a deposit.

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

You should try that with your paystub and let us know how it goes.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Transferring to another bank account perhaps? Quite simple actually.

As for warranty cheques, some places need you to pay perhaps 3 months rent in advance which are being refunded or used to pay for later rents when applicable. Otherwise a regular contract can function in pretty much the same way.

Or perhaps swedes are just so much more trustworthy. You choose.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, it can accept transactions and process them at a later time. This might result in a negative balance for an account, but for most of the time it is not a big problem.

Also, the system very seldom goes down. I have had more problem with the cash register not having enough change for them to be able to accept a large bill. That is a much bigger problem.

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Thatâ(TM)s the disadvantage of living in an isolated backwater ruled by a dynastic dictator.

There are many areas in which widespread adoption of automation, technology, and consumer rights in which the US is 20-30 years behind the rest of the industrialised world.

You guys ceased to be the beacon on the hill a long time ago.

Re:Check it

[Carewolf]

Huh? How do you give someone (not a business) a large amount of money ? Say for renting a vacation place ? Even more so, how do you give a warranty cheque, you know, the kind that you can tear up at the end ?

The same way you do it all of the civilized world, with a bank transfer. Why write cheques? Most people under 60 have ever had a checking account outside of the US, because the rest of the world is not stuck with WW2 banking technology.

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Or how about standing in at the grocery behind someone who has to use three different cards to find one that has a
balance on it. Arghhh .
Cash takes around 10 seconds, unless a jerk off is paying in all change .

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. Im in Canada and i get an IRS refund cheque every year, takes 3-4 weeks to fully clear

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

As I've posted many times before I know exactly how to close this where a bad actor would have to steal blanks to get more then the face amt. We have the capability to do perfect antiforgery on checks. The security hole is ACH.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people under 60 have ever had a checking account outside of the US, because the rest of the world is not stuck with WW2 banking technology.

Translation: Most sheeple under 60 are so brainwashed as to turn every single transaction between two people into an orgy of intermediaries and middle-men, each charging a tithe on every bit of wealth changing hands along the way. Bonus points for giving various local Authoritarians full access to the history of each an every penny spent and a complete power to instantly remove all wealth from the said suckers with a click of a button.

The most amazing thing is that the slaves in question are actually proud of their idiocy and deride everyone else who does not have that nifty digital (with cool led blinkers and a touchscreen) slave collar on. Cause "convenience" at all costs ... or something.

The future is truly hopeless with all self-preservation instincts apparently successfully bred out and replaced with gleeful and self-righteous rush toward total brainless subservience to the top 0.1%

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you're awfully proud of this English word, that is actually French. I swear to fucking god you Limeys are retarded. "Hurr durr, you colonials removed the useless French vowels from words like color that we kept around because we're retarded cucks, blah blah blah." Go watch the your precious BBC to distract from the Muslims taking over your country. That's a good bloke. Pip pip.

Re:Check it

[dargaud]

A bank transfer ?!? My banks block those by default. The only accounts I use are on a whitelist, and that whitelist gets changed only when I physically go to the bank to change it. A cheque is a LOT more convenient. And my accounts don't get hacked every other day by Nigerians asking for a bank transfer by phone.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of horseshit. The Swedish banking system is in the forefront and if it is a country that is backwards it is the U.S. It is super easy to make international electronic money transfers to and from Swedish banks. I did it all the time when I lived in the U.S. The reason the IRS doesn't do it has nothing to do with the Swedish banking system.

Thanks for showing what a moron you are.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because cheques are entirely free of charge and of intermediaries *cough, cough*. People like you are why the U.S. is a third-world country in many ways.

Re:Check it

[dcw3]

Not believing the AC here. First of all, it's never taken a bank that long to clear a check. Secondly, how often do you find Americans (assuming he's claiming to be so since he mentioned the IRS) who spell it "cheques"?

I cashed a check at my credit union just two days ago, and it's already cleared.

Re: Check it

[dcw3]

What school district is this? My kid graduated nine years ago, and I was rarely ever writing checks back when she was in high school.

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheques are nearly non-existent here and have not been on common use during the 20 years that I have lived in Sweden.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

So you admit you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about?
1. Every one who has earned income in the U.S. has to pay U.S. taxes, not just Americans. I find it amusing that you don't know that.
2. If you lived in the U.S. for a period of time, earing income, and then returned to your home country, you'd file income taxes with the IRS, which then sends a cheque.
3. You have never banked with a Swedish bank. Not at all surprising but also not a big deal. Just stupid of you to assume it was an American bank.
4. In many European countries, including Sweding, British English is taught in school, hence the spelling.

Thanks's for playing, come back and try again. LOL

Re: Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is what cash is, but it's the government's IOU

Re: Check it

[pnutjam]

Hamilton Southeastern.
I generally try to avoid writing checks because the take forever to cash them, so I use cash, or cc when I can.

Re: Check it

[dcw3]

Oh, I agree, I rarely ever use checks, though I did need to for my lawn care guy (stopped mowing my own when I was working 6-7 day workweeks, and never looked back) until he retired last year.

Re:Check it

[KingBenny]

i always felt part of the middle to lower class poverty rates has always been directly connected to the attacks and neutralization of the lower black labour market ... since they cracked down on that, people simply have less money to spend on nikes and snickers ... the 'official' wage is used for saving and getting loans for large purchases but most of that off-the books money, from about EVERYONE i know and have ever known is actually daily living money which means it benefits the retail at the very least, very much indeed, so without it, its no wonder you see about only 25% of stores and cafes as you did 15 years ago, its not just the large chainstores there's just no money to spend, only money to save

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

I would have thought that consumer friendly Europe would have taken care of this problem years ago.

The "problem" is nobody was writing many if any cheques that needed to be cleared. But I can send/receive money to/from just about anybody in Europe more or less instantly, if I know their bank and account number/tell them mine. In fact, I can make direct payments to bank accounts in most countries in a couple of minutes right in my online banking. And these things have been true for at least 15 years (since I came here).

Since it's still basically not possible to do these things in the US, I'd say it's not Europe that's needing to catch up in this regard.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

Australia, actually, though I'm originally from the US.

Re: Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

As someone who shops almost daily in Swedish grocery stores, I'm here to inform you that this basically never happens.

Why would anyone need *three* cards? Most people here have one bank card, issued by the bank where their salary or pension gets deposited.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

I've lived in Stockholm for over ten years and I've no reason to lie about banking or anything else here, thanks very much.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

If your bank can't tell the difference between something that puts money *into* your account and something that removes money *from* your account, they're doing it wrong.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

Because you're very special and the NSA really does care about what brand of toilet paper you prefer.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called cash. The thing all governments hate. Maybe you've heard of it.

Re:Check it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, the "you have nothing to hide" line. That worked such wonders everywhere else in history....

Its not the toilet paper but political contributions, subscriptions to undesirable media all the way to funds used to organize protests and eventually, and at this point quite inevitably, a revolution or two. Having ability to track and remotely block any flow of finances is likely to squash any practical dissent quite effectively.

You also forget that cashless societies are equally desirable by all of those in power, be it oligarchic USA with its NSA secret police or the Theocratic Iranian Ayatollahs with their secret police or Communist China with their secret police, for the very same reasons: total control by the top elites over the rest of the populace. They just have different window dressing up front and different idiots who believe the fairy tales their respective propagandists spin.

Re:Check it

[Zontar The Mindless]

... oligarchic USA with its NSA secret police or the Theocratic Iranian Ayatollahs with their secret police or Communist China with their secret police ...

All three of those régimes resulted from the hard work of ... revolutionaries.

Be careful what you wish for, friend.

DEC?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what exactly Digital Equipment Corporation (logo) has to do with this?

Re:DEC?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are ruining this site, you fucking ignorant asshole. Try a fucking search engine, instead of sperging the fuck out, per usual.

Re:DEC?

[Zontar The Mindless]

You're talking to someone who thinks that, because he's cleverly appended a number encased in parens to someone else's username, he's fooling anyone other than himself.

You'll get better results talking to your hand.

Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh. What in the living hell does this have to do with the Digital Equipment Corporation!?

Re:Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[Narcocide]

Nothing, other than apparently that the new Slashdot ownership isn't old enough to remember them.

Re:Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[Trailer Trash]

It's 8:55PM CDT on June 11, 2018, and the DEC logo is still up there.

Re:Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[Darinbob]

I still see the DEC logo (hint, it's the one that says "digital").

Re:Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see now how you "fix" things, what a tool you are..

Re:Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[Anonymous Coward]

...it is still there.

Re:Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Look carefully. He's not BeauHD, and he has nothing to do with running this site.

Re:Why does this article have the DEC logo!?

[kilfarsnar]

Shut up, gramps. It was fixed b4 u put the comment in.

Ah, the impetuousness of youth.

Solution: UBI for all in cash envelopes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Left!!

Re:Solution: UBI for all in cash envelopes!

[Anonymous Coward]

UBI is removing progression from the social security making it a right wing concept and readying the society for even taxation, a right wing dream. Left, right, whatever is right, who knows, as long as there are cows.

Re:Solution: UBI for all in cash envelopes!

[Anonymous Coward]

UBI is removing progression from the social security making it a right wing concept and readying the society for even taxation, a right wing dream. Left, right, whatever is right, who knows, as long as there are cows.

UBI, whether a left-wing concept or a right-wing concept, is fundamentally barbaric because it treats individuals as property of the state. I'd be more interested in a libertarian-style UBI, i.e. one that is opt-in and driven purely by charity, but that's because I put justice above the various notions of "fairness" invented by statists of both wings.

Life's not fair. The true purpose of government is to stamp out this unfairness. They do this by stamping out life. In an advanced, high-tax, regulated society, people exist but they are not truly alive.

Re:Solution: UBI for all in cash envelopes!

[BlueStrat]

UBI, whether a left-wing concept or a right-wing concept, is fundamentally barbaric because it treats individuals as property of the state.

There's already a name for a system in which the government is the provider/controller of life-sustaining essentials like income, food, housing, etc.

Prison.

The "cashless society" types are simply prisons without physical walls.

Strat

Re: Solution: UBI for all in cash envelopes!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see a society where big corporations control food, housing, work and income as any freer than one where government does the same.

Re: Solution: UBI for all in cash envelopes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's much worse. You can change people in charge every few years when there are elections, on the other hand try getting rid of GAFAM.

Re:Solution: UBI for all in cash envelopes!

[kilfarsnar]

UBI, whether a left-wing concept or a right-wing concept, is fundamentally barbaric because it treats individuals as property of the state. I'd be more interested in a libertarian-style UBI, i.e. one that is opt-in and driven purely by charity, but that's because I put justice above the various notions of "fairness" invented by statists of both wings.

If charity were sufficient, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

How do prostitutes handle a cashless economy?

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

According to something I read recently, tracking the credit card transactions they take is the number one means by which they are arrested! No logic there at all.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[youngone]

How do prostitutes handle a cashless economy?

In civilised countries where we don't bother criminalising prositutes, they accept electronic payments like any other business.
I suspect you are confusing the US with a modern country.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont know. But my partner would sure be suspicious - whats this Stormy services?
Dont worry honey, its a business transaction.

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada they mostly still use cash, even though it is not a crime. I always keep some hand for a rub and tug.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[TheInternetGuy]

But would the clients (who are criminalized) be hesitant to use a card for this? That can't be good for business.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[LostMyBeaver]

I don't think that's really a problem. How hard is it to use something like Paypal or the Swedish similar service.

In Norway, I gave a homeless person about $50 the other day hoping that she would go find someplace to take a shower and clean herself up a little. I paid it to her using a telephone payment system from the bank.

Of course, if that wouldn't have worked, I could go to any convenience store and buy a relatively anonymous prepaid credit card.

Now I have no idea what form of payments prostitutes here take, I would imagine they've sorted that out by now.

But to be honest... I have 500NOK in my wallet, it's been there over a year. I've traveled to 15+ countries this past year and other than in Qatar where I thought the money looked cool and took some out, I haven't used cash at all.

What's really amazing is that you can actually function pretty well without cash in America these days... at least it Seattle and Tampa. I was really shocked since the U.S. is basically a 2nd or 3rd world country (this is based on how the wealthy and middle class treat their poor)

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[tinkerton]

That touches on my main worry about cashless: power concentration. You don't feel it until a bit later when this concentrated power decides to use it .
- Let's introduce negative interest rates
- from now on we don't want you to pay to fund organisations of type X
- from now on it is impossible to do trade with person Y

Checks and balances, there's a reason for it.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

How do prostitutes handle a cashless economy?

We don't know. There is no such thing as a cashless economy yet.

Every "cashless" society so far have full support of using cash, it's just that you can get around on a card only if you want to. (Except possibly if you are trying to use the services of a prostitute.)

As you should be able to conclude from the summary the banks in Sweden still handles cash, it is just that they are trying to move away from that because of the cost of handling cash.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[fafalone]

How's about a better example then. Since your 'civilised' country still has backwards, barbaric drug policies that increase the level of harm, because they're unwilling to accept science and reason because of moral judgements, how do drug dealers handle a cashless economy?

(No country has acknowleged the failure of the War on Drugs and eliminated prohibition as their policy for drugs beyond pot. Only Portugal has even decriminalized personal possession of tiny quantities, still miles away from what a civilized, rational country would do if their interest actually was minimizing the harm of hard drugs; limited-access heroin maintenance programs are similarly far too narrow in scope to count. More civilized than the US != civilized)

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, thanks i had no idea in that us ignorant morons could live our lives mainly without cash even though we've already been doing it for 10 plus years in the good old Midwest of the USA. As a father of 5 i rarely have the need to carry cash for anything besides the need to purchase something we might want from a friend. Otherwise we use a bank card or online service. Shocking i know.

Our poor in the US are far and away better off than regular citizens in many other countries so your claims are clearly unfounded and nothing more than a arrogant cheap shot.

-geekpoet

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[elrous0]

I live in a working class area in the U.S. where most people still use cash. Still, the only thing I really have to use cash for now are tips and donations. I wish more charities would offer some sort of credit card scanner when they're having a drive. And any place where you are expected to tip should offer an option to include your tip as part of payment (most restaurants do now, but there are still a few holdouts). The only business I've run into around here that still absolutely requires cash is this one Asian dry-cleaners that I stopped going to because I got tired of having to go to an ATM just for them. They're probably losing half their business just to save 2% on CC processing fees.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

The War on Drugs is not a Swedish thing. When you project your problems and values on societies built on different values there's a risk of getting it completely wrong. Drug use in Sweden is actually minuscule compared to the US or Portugal. Statistics might be misleading as Sweden has well functioning government provided healthcare and social services which means drug users are rarely out of the system and not part of statistics.Statistical reporting is another thing that differs, Portugal's reports on overdose deaths are so impossibly low that suicide from legally prescribed drugs should account for many times the reported deaths, let alone illegal drug use. As for the actual numbers, reported number of overdose deaths in Portugal are 3 / 1 million, reported suicides are 87 / 1 million.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

In Norway, I gave a homeless person about $50 the other day hoping that she would go find someplace to take a shower and clean herself up a little. I paid it to her using a telephone payment system from the bank.

And then she proceeded to use the money to pay her phone bill, so she can continue receiving phone payments to cover her future phone bills.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you do not look back but you have to try to build something better, like a decentralized crypto token that you can use to exchange value without relying on a central authority.(uhmm...wait..were I heard this?). You could do even better using a fallback system that allows for personal transactions even if there is no network at the moment (like a local digital wallet on a smartphone).

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[mjwx]

How do prostitutes handle a cashless economy?

In civilised countries where we don't bother criminalising prositutes, they accept electronic payments like any other business.
I suspect you are confusing the US with a modern country.

What he means is "how are you going to pay a prostitute without your wife finding out sans cash"?

But seriously, the cheapest countries I've been to have been cash based. Without banks putting their sticky fingers over everything, business make more profit whilst customers get lower prices. Getting a pint in Central London is €6-10 and a prossie €3-500. In Central Amsterdam its €3-7 for a pint and some brass can be had for as little as €50.

You can usually tell if a business prefers cash because they price their products in whole numbers to reduce change, in Amsterdam it was about €5 or €5.20 for a pint, in central London, bars often priced things at £5.99.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

The only business I've run into around here that still absolutely requires cash is this one Asian dry-cleaners that I stopped going to because I got tired of having to go to an ATM just for them. They're probably losing half their business just to save 2% on CC processing fees.

There's also a good chance that the reason they only accept cash is to avoid reporting income to the IRS (which is also the reason a lot of contractors will give you a "cash discount".)

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[cayenne8]

You could do even better using a fallback system that allows for personal transactions even if there is no network at the moment

Err....something like CASH?

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Malc]

You're confusing different issues here.

There's no reason why a cashless society should be cheaper given that they start incurring transaction charges. Once cash has gone, who's to stop those charges going up? The recent change in the EU that ended separate credit card fees is even worse because this helps hide these fees. Personally I think card fees should be charged directly to the card holder rather than hiding it in the merchant's prices. This might introduce competition and an incencitve to shop around for card providers.

I always thought that prices that end .99 were playing a psychological trick that they appear at first glance a whole currency unit less. When it comes to pints, this is silly - who shops around for a pint? Pick a pub and order a drink. Change the scene if it's offensively expensive like £2/pint more than everywhere else around there. To be honest though, as a Londoner, I've rarely seen a pint ending .99. I think it's more expensive than Amersterdam because the cost of living is so much higher anyway.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[mjwx]

You're confusing different issues here.

I would disagree, yes there are two issues at play, but I'm not confusing one with the other.

There's no reason why a cashless society should be cheaper given that they start incurring transaction charges. Once cash has gone, who's to stop those charges going up? The recent change in the EU that ended separate credit card fees is even worse because this helps hide these fees. Personally I think card fees should be charged directly to the card holder rather than hiding it in the merchant's prices. This might introduce competition and an incencitve to shop around for card providers.

I couldn't agree with this more. Charges applied to merchants should be directly passed onto the customer. However banks and credit networks (Visa/MC/AMEX) explicitly do not permit it and are doing everything they can to get credit card surcharges banned by law in many countries so merchants have to hide how much cards are costing them (in the form of higher prices).

I'm not anti-credit mind you, all forms of payment have their place. If we lost cash, we'd definitely miss it. I treat credit like sugar, a little is OK but you don't want your diet being 95% sugar.

I always thought that prices that end .99 were playing a psychological trick that they appear at first glance a whole currency unit less. When it comes to pints, this is silly - who shops around for a pint? Pick a pub and order a drink. Change the scene if it's offensively expensive like £2/pint more than everywhere else around there. To be honest though, as a Londoner, I've rarely seen a pint ending .99. I think it's more expensive than Amersterdam because the cost of living is so much higher anyway.

Yes, that 99p is psychological pricing. Most people just look at the £5 and ignore the numbers after it. Even though everyone knows about it, it's still stupidly effective.

Although it's rare to see an actual .99 at a pub, plenty of Wetherspoons I've been to have had numbers like 3.25 or 3.72 to make them slightly cheaper than the pub round the corner owned by a bloke named Dave who charges 3.50 or 4 quid a pint (personally, I'd rather give the extra 30p to Dave, owner-operated pubs are one of the best things about England).

I compared Amsterdam to London because the COL is similar for many things, the Dutch pay more tax, but have more subsidised services so I think it evens out (they pay €0.72 for a 5p bag, so swings and roundabouts).

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the silly little man, in English.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[kilfarsnar]

That touches on my main worry about cashless: power concentration. You don't feel it until a bit later when this concentrated power decides to use it . - Let's introduce negative interest rates - from now on we don't want you to pay to fund organisations of type X - from now on it is impossible to do trade with person Y

Checks and balances, there's a reason for it.

Yes, and these reasons are why, once you go cashless, they have you by the balls. No more private or anonymous transactions. You will be forced to keep your money in the bank; where else could it be? There will be a record of every transaction; data mining on steroids. Unfortunately, most people only see the convenience, and don't have the foresight or imagination to understand all of the implications.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to pints, this is silly - who shops around for a pint?

I don't shop around, but price makes a big difference on what I order. Recently restaurants in the US (Chili's and Friday's) have stopped putting prices on drinks. No prices for beer, wine, mixed drink, or even soda! We asked the server, if they had a price list. She said, "Just ask." This is bullshit. Obviously she has access to a price list and I'm not going to ask the price of 20 things so I can make an informed decision. So, fine. I order a pint. She says the CO2 system is out. We left. I won't be back.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[judoguy]

What's really amazing is that you can actually function pretty well without cash in America these days... at least it Seattle and Tampa. I was really shocked ...

Being able to function without cash (most of the time) doesn't preclude the usfullness of cash in other situations.

I was really shocked since the U.S. is basically a 2nd or 3rd world country (this is based on how the wealthy and middle class treat their poor)

And yet poor people are literally dying to get here and native poor people aren't trying to leave. Just shows how stupid poor people are, eh?

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[kilfarsnar]

How's about a better example then. Since your 'civilised' country still has backwards, barbaric drug policies that increase the level of harm, because they're unwilling to accept science and reason because of moral judgements, how do drug dealers handle a cashless economy? (No country has acknowleged the failure of the War on Drugs and eliminated prohibition as their policy for drugs beyond pot. Only Portugal has even decriminalized personal possession of tiny quantities, still miles away from what a civilized, rational country would do if their interest actually was minimizing the harm of hard drugs; limited-access heroin maintenance programs are similarly far too narrow in scope to count. More civilized than the US != civilized)

The American War on Drugs, as you may know, is a political monster; not a scientific one. It was begun so that the Nixon administration could go after the leaders of the civil rights movement and the anti-war left. It is no surprise that it doesn't achieve its stated goals. It was never designed to. It has however somewhat achieved its actual goals, in that black people are over-represented in American prisons. It is a national disgrace that America has yet to come to terms with.

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[kilfarsnar]

Our poor in the US are far and away better off than regular citizens in many other countries so your claims are clearly unfounded and nothing more than a arrogant cheap shot.

-geekpoet

This is what people in America tell themselves so that they don't have to readjust their rosy view. 7.4% of the people in the US don't necessarily know where their next meal is coming from. You think that's the case for "regular citizens" of other countries?

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

Well played, Mr. Coward.

See the discussion that follows your mention of the one word that binds them all: the word hooker.

Even the slouchiest of the couch potato basement dwellers have formed their own twisted visions of functioning within a cashless society.

Your seemingly innocuous one liner is analogous to throwing a live grenade in this forum.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[tinkerton]

The checks and balances mean you're required to think from an attitude of distrust, even if it's artificial distrust. Instead people simply just trust the system until they distrust it. Institutions in the meantime never see harm in concentrating more power if it allows them to do their job better. I'm being as nice as possible here in my formulation.

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 7.4%?

I never know, I keep asking the wife where to order from and all I hear back is "I don't care". But then suggest something and only hear back "Nah, I'm not in the mood for that".

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

With a point-of-sale terminal, just like other providers of services.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's much more serious than that. It is one of the major cogs in a dictatorial panopticon -- tracking all financial transactions. Of what good is being "secure in your papers" if everything meaningful is open for government inspection.

The point against giving government this power is to deny wannabe kings the ability to begin with. If you don't build it, it can never be abused.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[fafalone]

The origins of prohibition as a policy long predate the crackdown launched by Nixon, going all the way back to 1914 and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. And whatever the origin, the claims for the continuation of it now are entirely centered on false claims about it being necessary to prevent a large increase in abuse.

I do like calling SJWs racist when they support the WoD though.

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that the cost of living in London will go down, or slowdown, significantly in the nearby future.
OT, cash is for third world countries. I rarely use cash. I probably spent around 500 to 1000 euro in cash last year. And I make a comfortable 6 figures.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[tinkerton]

I agree.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday people will figure out why Bitcoin was invented.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Sex Workers are Using Crypto to Save for Retirement

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a working class area in the U.S. where most people still use cash. Still, the only thing I really have to use cash for now are tips and donations. I wish more charities would offer some sort of credit card scanner when they're having a drive. And any place where you are expected to tip should offer an option to include your tip as part of payment (most restaurants do now, but there are still a few holdouts). The only business I've run into around here that still absolutely requires cash is this one Asian dry-cleaners that I stopped going to because I got tired of having to go to an ATM just for them. They're probably losing half their business just to save 2% on CC processing fees.

There is a very high chance their CC processing fees are significantly higher in practice. Each CC actually charges a different set of fees. There are (at least) 12 different and distinct types of CC fees that merchants might have to pay on different transactions from different cards (Flat fees, Terminal fees, Payment Gateway fees, POS software fees, PCI fees, statement fees, Online reporting fees, Incidental fees, Voice Authorization fees (VAF), Retrieval Request fees, Chargeback fees, and Batch fees).

And those reward cards? The rewards come from the merchant's end. Your business probably costs them 10% or more than their cash customers (if you have one of those fancy reward cards and I bet you do). And considering Dry-cleaning has the highest margin of any retail business, I'm sure they will be just fine with you taking your business elsewhere since you drive up their costs far more than their cash customers. Yes, I'm sure there is plenty of IRS fraud too, but don't act like using a CC is cheap for the merchants.

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[Anonymous Coward]

In the us they will price the item at one value but charge you a completely different value at checkout, including a selection of taxes that they didn't know about when they printed the prices and a 20% bribe/tip...

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[LostMyBeaver]

And yet, you allow companies like Walmart to intentionally and legally pay their employees wages clearly marked as poverty and then additionally allow them to have departments to help them apply for government subsidy effectively making employed people beggars. All the while, the shareholders of that same company is paying dividends equal to approximately the same value they force the people to beg for.

Oh... and there's a minimum wage which allows systematical impoverishment of the working person. Anyone working in a minimum wage career is worth precisely that value... the government regulated and mandated minimum wage which is a way the employer can say
"If the government will legally allow me to pay you less, I will"
and also says
"There's no point in me treating you well, you don't even respect yourself to get a job working for someone who respects you"
followed by
"There's no point in you changing jobs, you're a minimum wage worker today and every other job you'd get is also minimum wage or close to it."
and also
"Of course I respect you... I don't want you to suffer, instead of $7.15 an hour, we'll pay you $9 and hour! Yes, I know that's still way below poverty levels, but you're worth it!"

Oh... should we talk about overdraft fees that banks place on poor people to exploit them. It's a systematical means of attacking the poor and exploiting them.

How about the justice and prison system which takes Americans who don't seem to live up to the standards of "we think he'll be an asset to the country" and then fosters to the systematic production of career criminals and prisoners since the poor people are basically not worth anything other than a means to provide jobs in former coal towns at prisons.

Dude... not a pot shot... America is a second world possibly third world country. You treat your poor worse than you treat your live stock. And the funny part is, it's so important that you do that it would be almost impossible to change it now. Just imagine how completely screwed the entire country would be if the U.S. actually converted their penal facilities to correctional facilities. The job market would be flooded, the millions of people employed directly or indirectly by the prison systems would be out of work. Then there would be the fact that places like Dairy Queen wouldn't be legally allowed to turn people down for jobs.

The entire U.S. economy would collapse if you didn't treat your poor people so badly. It's disgusting.

As for you not needing to carry cash... I'm very excited for you. In fact, many poor people don't need to any more since they now have fancy cards that let them buy food without having to use paper food stamps anymore. Isn't that nifty!!! This way, a Walmart employee can work a 12 hour shift desperately hoping to make ends-meet and then use their food-stamp benefit card on their way out to buy frozen food with so many preservatives that they'll get fat just smelling it while it's still frozen.

Of course then you have to consider that those people have to use cash because the overdraft fee they got nail by for seeing whether they have money or not is still lingering on their bank account from last week and if they transfer money into their bank account, the fee will eat it up. So when they go to the "Pay day loan" shop which will legally loan you money for the week at only 30% interest, they need to ask for it in cash because of that looming $75 fee they paid because they were down to $0.50 and they used the ATM in the mall to check whether they had enough money before using it and the machine charged $2 to check.

Yeh... it must be nice to be wealthy enough to be the father of 5 in the mid-west where you can go to Walmart and see the minimum wage beggars as if they were in a zoo. It must also be nice to be a father of 5 in the mid-west where you bring your kids to eat happy meals and play on the play ground while the an

Re: I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[dcw3]

Having been to 50+ countries and living in a few, I'd argue that the GP is correct. I have to question your "7.4%"...where's that figure from? Yes, we do have a homeless problem in many cities now, but I think that's also mixed in with the poor way in which we handle our mentally ill. Certainly with the current unemployment rates, if they wanted work, they should be able to find it. You might argue that minimum wage isn't enough, but it certainly would feed them. And, FWIW, there are lots of shelters and soup kitchens that help out.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[dcw3]

But isn't it still standard practice for servers to underreport tips on their taxes? I would imagine that there's resistance to non cash payments for that reason.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[ebvwfbw]

How do prostitutes handle a cashless economy?

In civilised countries where we don't bother criminalising prositutes, they accept electronic payments like any other business.

I suspect you are confusing the US with a modern country.

The US is modern enough to be the world leader again, surpassing China recently. So where does that put your country? Don't believe what the main stream media tells you to believe. Just remember, if you go to college and flunk out of everything else, you can still be a news reporter. Dumbest of the dumb.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[youngone]

The US is modern enough to be the world leader again, surpassing China recently...

In what? Number of motorcycles?
Go to bed Donald, your meds have kicked in.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[ebvwfbw]

The US is modern enough to be the world leader again, surpassing China recently...

In what? Number of motorcycles?

Go to bed Donald, your meds have kicked in.

Only a fool would say the leader in GDP isn't modern. Who knows, maybe I've found that fool?

Add up the bottom 5 out of top 10 and you're still not up to the US. Here, let me give you a link, based on the international money fund since you don't seem to know how to use google or maybe you don't even know what to look for or are familiar with international finances and modernization. Your comment was really that ignorant. Clueless I think is what I'm looking for. You're clueless.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

So I have a feeling your "modern" countries are way behind the US. In fact they barely even belong in the same list. Socialist polices have taken a big toll on Europe. Really big toll. It holds them back.

Just google world economies if that site isn't to your liking. I know crazy people love to say - oh well that's your site or some other BS so they can stay in their little fantasy world. They avoid reality best they can. Read fake news and believe it. I bet you still believe the collusion delusion.

Go to bed Hillary, you're meds have kicked in.

Re:I wonder if it's hard to get a hooker

[youngone]

...Here, let me give you a link, based on the international money fund...

The what? Oh, you mean the International Monetary Fund.

Of course, the only thing that matters is the size of your (ahem) economy. I get it now.

Go to bed Hillary, you're meds have kicked in.

Ha ha ha! You tried to copy my wee joke and exposed your illiteracy.

Fuckwit.

An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

with banks, citizenship, a power grid and secure networks in a rush to revert back to cash?
Tax and spending is now traced from all jobs to spending. Savings should go into approved taxed accounts. So the gov, tax side is a positive for the gov.
The gov can track tax collected and a nations spending habits. Work out what every citizen is shopping for and the amount saved, taxed.
An average person of average IQ should be able to use a bank card to buy something.
Social workers can help a number of citizens in every generation who need support with their digital banking.
An average person in Sweden should be expected to be able to legally open and use a bank account? As a citizen they had to prove to the bank they are who they say they are when opening an account.

So every bank account would be connected to a real Swedish citizen. A person allowed to be in Sweden who has the correct ID.

The bank end is safe and only allows the correct people to legally open and keep a working bank account.

The crypto between a bank and a small random shop selling food, drinks, snacks would work or every bank would lose money.
No low amount of spending would be blocked.
No sign of digital loss of funds down a network? The crypto works to the shop from the bank.
The card is not holding funds? People have used the old cards and new cards with special chips to move funds around globally for years.

So its not the banks having issues. Not a loss of funds down a network. Not the crypto to the shop. Not the average citizen who cant open a bank account and use a card that works.
Power supply to a city, town? The banking network and ISP network cant cope with all the transactions?
Why the need to rush back to cash that cant be traced? Who needs cash if they are a citizen and have a legal bank account? People who cannot prove to a bank they are legally able to open a bank account?
Is Sweden expecting the lack of grid power? A disruption to all networks? Found too many people in a community who cannot legally open a bank account?

Sweden was on the pathway to a digital connection between a wage, pay, savings, credit card use, tax rates, banks, ID to its own citizens and citizenship.

Who now needs Sweden to keep using cash nation wide for every transaction? People getting paid cash? No paying tax? What percentage of the population cant legally open a bank account? Have a legal bank account open for them?

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's great when it WORKS.

But really dumbfuck, I've experienced more than once that there been a system failure and you can't even purchase a fucking package of milk because there is NO fallback what so ever in Sweden, they don't process debitcards offline AT ALL.

Re:An advanced nation

[PPH]

So lets see if I understand your argument:

Yadda, yadda, tax. Mumble, tax, mumble, mumble. Something, something, tax.

How about you put your hands back in your own pockets. The paramount goal of an economy is not to feed the bureaucrats.

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

Find out why the power is not working?
Hire more engineers to work on a better design of power grid?
More big batteries, wind, solar, nuclear, hydro?
Have engineers use computers to map out what part of the grid is under constant repair and make payments to redesign and upgrade that part of the grid?
Then the banks, networks and shops will have the grid power needed to keep supporting cards and digital banking services all over Sweden.

Sweden can then enjoy the good side of no cash.
A set tax base that can extract all the funds from bank accounts every year to cover all the gov spending.
Every citizen will have to have some interaction with a bank in person to set up an account. That removes the once very easy path of using cash to pay for non citizens getting paid cash for years.
Every profession can pay tax, pay into a pension and enjoy a fair wage for the work done.
Spending habits can be tracked.
Sweden can save up for a better power grid to support its banking network.

Re:An advanced nation

[tepples]

Find out why the power is not working?

In the most common case, they know why: severe weather or natural disaster broke an unusual number of power lines at once. It may take days, however, for crews to reconnect the lines.

Spending habits can be tracked.

Tracked by whom, and serving what legitimate interest, in the era of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?

Re:An advanced nation

[Darinbob]

It's basically a case of national security. When the electronics fail then how does society manage?

Re:An advanced nation

[b0s0z0ku]

I'm guessing you're trolling considering your signature? :D Well played.

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

The government to see if the money is getting spent legally.
To see if any gov support payment is going to one person with a photo ID.
For tax rates. So the person working is getting the right tax rate, the correct wage and that their savings and spending fit around their reported work history.
Banks also like to consider their loans and who has the ability to make loan payments. Given a digital history of every past transaction with their bank.

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

Most advanced nations can get engineers on site.
If power is such a constant problem the locals would be ready for such events going back generations. With their own supplies set aside.
Grid down thats going to take a while?
Power the food "shops" with a generators and have a bank move in staff with their own network, power and payment system for that town.
The shop has power, the bank is working. People have payments to buy food and their cards work.
All a matter of having planning in place for longer loss of power and engineers to work on the grid.
Grid power is not new to any advance nation. Sweden has been using an electrical grid for a while now. Even nuclear power is connected to the grid..
Should a town or community need more time to restore power, banks should be able to move support services in too.
As the banks would have to fully support a national digital currency under all conditions.

Re:An advanced nation

[tepples]

Should a town or community need more time to restore power, banks should be able to move support services in too.
As the banks would have to fully support a national digital currency under all conditions.

Sticking with cash as a backup is presumably cheaper for the national government than subsidizing the banks to roll trucks every time there is severe weather.

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

Not trolling. Just trying to see who is pushing to go back to cash and why.
Digital banking would be a huge win for tax collection, gov payment tracking, as a national ID system for citizenship.
Who in Sweden cant cope with a banking system that would need photo ID and a back account?
Who has the political power to make cash a currency again and why?

Re:An advanced nation

[b0s0z0ku]

Who cares? It's a good thing that there's pushback against an evil trend.

Some of us don't want to be tracked like cattle, have our spending 100% controlled, and taxed to death.

Re:An advanced nation

[Applehu Akbar]

with banks, citizenship, a power grid and secure networks in a rush to revert back to cash?

I suspect that the refugees are the ones demanding untraceable cash transactions.

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

A photo ID and citizenship would all be digital. So would networking of that photo to see if that person has more than one legal account, another "real" Swedish/EU ID in use.
Instant stop to a lot of easy cash funded fraud and people get discovered with a lot of fake paperwork.
Gets more tricky to use the same face again and again all with different names and details.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

You talk about "the average citizen" as if that were the only type of person in Sweden.

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

Re "Who cares?"
My questions are not for people who have freedom and enjoy freedom.
Something made Sweden start and enjoy this cashless method of banking. Everything needed was in place and working.
A society on average that likes new tech and has fast networks. Electrical power and an advanced delivery system for goods and services.
An advanced nation and most things gov network and can support such photo ID tracking and taxation.

What did Sweden find in its collection of ID, bank accounts and the use of cash that now has it questioning its change to digital banking?
Who needs so much cash that cant be traced in such large amounts in Sweden? That has the power to make the gov revert to cash again?
Too many people cant use a bank card in 2018? Has education slipped that much?
Too many people don't want a bank to photo ID them in 2018?

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

Average as in able to use cash as they are now...
The ability to learn how to use a bank card. Most of a nations productive citizens do fit into that average.

Re:An advanced nation

[b0s0z0ku]

Whoever it is, they're doing the cause of privacy a service! Cheers to them!

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good question given that those in a position to make this decision are those that benefit most from the elimination of cash.

Still, I have to highlight your description of "an advanced nation". You explain how the government acquires, through this system, an immense amount of power over the individuals in a society and describe how this power can be used to do good things. What you miss is that this same power can be used to do bad things. History has shown us time and again that immense, central power goes hand in hand with tyranny.

Forestalling tyranny is a pretty good reason for keeping cash around but, as I began, I admit that those with the decision to make this decision should be in favour of such tyranny for they will be the tyrants.

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

You're missing the point by projecting US values on Sweden. There are major differences:

1. Government isn't the enemy of the people, nor is it seen as one. It's overwhelmingly seen as organisation for the people, by the people. This is common in Nordics because here it isn't the government that was the major oppressive force on people. It was the extremely harsh climate. Government was the means to counter this major oppressive force, and actually survive to modernity.
2. Things like tax collection are widely seen primarily as civic duty, not as a burden. That's why we have "omg your tax rate is WHAT?!?!?!" reaction from North Americans migrating here. As well as "your government fully funds WHAT?!?!?!?!" when they have to go to the hospital, take their children to daycare, or take a university class while living on their own.

This however makes the reality of not being able to handle payments while living in the rural areas a reality during things like winter storms, when it's really critical for survival that payment is possible. Reminder of the historic reasons for #1 applies here. So government has noticed that there is a genuine problem in rural areas with cashlessness, and is now acting within its primary mandate of ensuring that backup systems work regardless of how it disadvantages the bureaucracy in Stockholm.

It is how Nordic government works as a matter of principle, and the main reason why most people from other cultures have such massive hurdles comprehending just why many things they're used to "being left to their own devices" "just work" here. It's the way citizenry and state interact with one another in a region where both had to support one another against the primary common enemy that is Nordic winter.

Re:An advanced nation

[LostMyBeaver]

Really? Over here in Norway, the machine would just go "beep beep beep" and then make you sign a receipt instead. I think I've actually done that for a 1500NOK dinner.

I can understand why you guys are struggling. But would it really be that big of a problem in Sweden? I always imagined Sweden, Norway and Denmark were pretty much the same when it comes to trusting that people are generally honest.

Re:An advanced nation

[LostMyBeaver]

Nope... in Norway at least, we can just go to a website and setup a bank account. You need a national ID number and you need the government two factor authentication to do so, but no interaction with the bank in person. In fact, we setup our kids when they were 8 and 10 years old and they didn't even need to be there. Now, for the rest of their lives, they can perform all banking transactions including taking loans for a house online.

Norway and Sweden have power grids which... well they don't really go down. Checking my power monitoring software at my house, I had one power outage 6 years ago and I remember we were warned about that because of grid upgrades. Additionally, I saw a mild brownout 10 years ago. The power grids in this part of the world pretty much just work. It's called being in a first world country.

All banking outages I'm aware of in Norway for the past 6 years (since I've been involved) have been due to negligence in failed changes during outage windows. It's been things like failed certificate renewals and such. This is very common.

The problem boils down to one simple thing. Banks tend to use more IT people and less IS people. As a result you get a whole lot more stupid people running systems.

Re:An advanced nation

[LostMyBeaver]

When the electronics fail, we have far deeper rooted problems to deal with. Money is barely the start of it.

Money has value because we trust the issuer of that money. This is why for some time we wouldn't want Iceland crowns in our pockets.

If we lose the electronics, it will be due to a failure by the issuer of that currency to do their jobs. This means that even if the paper theoretically has some value to it, that paper's value would collapse quickly because the country issuing it would no longer be able to manage their debts to other countries. As such, the market would collapse the money would be useless anyway. The paper money would only buy a few days of relief before the absolute downfall.

This is why it's nice to have things like Paypal and other services which could also collapse, but if for example the entire Norwegian economy collapsed, I always have a few hundred bucks in my Paypal account and I have some prepaid credit cards here and there as well.

People who would keep cash around to be prepared are also people who would keep alternative payment forms around. My in-laws have a few bars of silver in a safe somewhere. People who aren't prepared would be purely at the mercy of support from the national guards.

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds barbaric. They need oppression and fear. Go cashless to bring the misery.

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, Sweden is a bit paranoid about Russia, and they have skilled hackers.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

if the money is in the bank, is not your money, is the bank's money

only a fool (like me) would keep all his life savings in a bank account... ask me how much money I lost in 2001 in Argentina, after the banks stole the money of almost everybody (of course not the money of politics, elite, etc). While the president said on TV that we where in crisis, airplanes full of cash and gold were departing the country.

Year 2002: https://www.lanacion.com.ar/367326-caviglia-las-divisas-se-fugaron-a-traves-de-358-camiones-de-caudales

Yup,in 2001 the banks stole the savings of a entire country. If you thrust the banks and the "digital society" , you're a fool. I now save in gold, and in caribe. Banks, only the minimun to function, but you should have a big fat stash of cash in case shit hits the fan.

Re:An advanced nation

[Dog-Cow]

It's called being a geographically-insignificant country, actually. Your "first world" status has nothing to do with it.

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "paranoia" when their subs keep showing up in the harbour of your capital city.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

I can understand why you guys are struggling. But would it really be that big of a problem in Sweden?

No, it isn't a big problem.
Parent is an outlier and the issue isn't that the system didn't have a fallback, the issue was more likely that neither him nor the person working behind the counter knew how to handle a situation like that and neither had the sense to call a manager.

Re:An advanced nation

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's AHuxley, who seems to have mistaken this article for his journal.

Re:An advanced nation

[Dog-Cow]

Ironically, you seem to have the stereotypical American education. No one is going to lose faith in a government-issued currency because weather takes out power for a week. But it will still play hell with people's lives if they cannot purchase anything for that length of time. When you live in a tiny place, you might find that getting the power back doesn't take too long. Now extend that to the entire north-east sector of the US. Things take longer when you have 1000s more km2 to cover.

Re: An advanced nation

[houghi]

Can anybody point to a severe power outage in Europe that lasted for, say, a week? The longest I heard on the news was not even a day.

Re:An advanced nation

[Zontar The Mindless]

Let me endeavour to ameliorate your ignorance just a bit with a few fun facts about Norway:

North to south, Norway's about 1200 miles long--roughly the same distance as from NYC to Key West.

It's almost all rugged mountains and ragged coast. (Unlike the US East Coast, which is generally pretty flat going hundreds of miles inland.)

Roughly half the country lies above the Arctic Circle. (Unlike the US East Coast, which lies entirely within the temperate zone.)

When you're speaking about building and maintaining nationwide power and transport networks, those features are *quite* significant.

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, there will always be cash. All of my recent firearms related purchases were with cash. Why would I give the government the ability to track what arms I have?

Re:An advanced nation

[Zontar The Mindless]

That's exactly what happened the only time I've ever encountered that situation in Sweden. They asked if I could pay in cash, and when I didn't have enough, they just pulled out one of the old card machines that takes an impression of the card, took one, filled in the price/sales tax/total, had me sign the receipt, and my purchase and I were on our merry way.

The payment showed up on my account ledger a day or two later, so I'm guessing they had little or no trouble running the transaction manually once their system came back up.

Just like they do in the US, oddly enough!

Re:An advanced nation

[Zontar The Mindless]

I suspect that you're a worthless troll.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

> Norway and Sweden have power grids which... well they don't really go down.

Uh, no, just no. Sweden has been working on that since a few years back a big winter storm left lots and lots of people without power for over a week, but even that basic work of putting more cables underground is not completed, certainly not in the whole country.
But like most countries nowadays, Sweden has no requirement for even the major power lines to be redundant, and the power grid within the country is overloaded (requiring them to pay dearly for importing power from e.g. Denmark).
Southern Sweden also regularly has issues powering their trains, or does that not count because it's trains and not houses?
Sure, you don't get regular power failures. But that just means you are hit really bad when the power finally is out for a really long period.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

America is PvP, and Nordic is PvE?

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

I use firearms to get more cash!! It's a virtuous cycle!!

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you missed the whole GDPR thing? There are enough people that don't want their banks (or whichever payment provider) to know EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE they make, which btw includes knowing where these people have been.
And you seem to also have missed the thing where VISA was down for a whole day?
Or the fact that because none of the Swedish systems made it above "nice joke of a try" the "cashless society" is a "no transaction done without US approval" society?
It's easy to advocate for cashless when you don't notice or care about your country being at the whim of only 2 companies, which have proven to block payments based on US politics (even when there was no legal requirement).
Then again, we are talking about a country that has ignored the EU court ruling declaring one of its laws (datalagringsdirektivet) illegal over a year ago, and nobody gives a shit. So much so it's mostly foreign newspapers that even report on it.
In a country where full-out illegal surveillance of citizen's internet usage is just silently accepted, I guess it's no surprise there are people like you who would defend cashless without even a clue of why people might be against it.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

> Instant stop to a lot of easy cash funded fraud

Yeah, sure. Do you even read the newspapers? There is a lot of fraud the police in Sweden knows about and could trivially stop (like the fake invoices) and simply nothing is being done.
And your "networking of that photo" against other EU IDs isn't even possible because in Germany the CONSTITUTION forbids the government from even HAVING such a database, even more so giving anyone access to it.
It really hurts to see how you have such a strong opinion on this, yet you seem to be so clueless about how things actually are and work.

Re:An advanced nation

[currently_awake]

So you cross a border and open a bank account in a more permissive country. Now you can use your (foreign) bank card in Sweden for your needs, and the government only knows a bank account number and transaction records. In theory a foreign bank could have a banking app for your phone (crypto secured), and the local government wouldn't even know the transaction happened.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

With the changeover to chipped cards recently, all the new chip credit/debit cards I have received no longer have raised numbers which would preclude that, writing down the numbers is possible, but seems even more archaic.
The modern world seems to be heading toward a total dependency on electronics, and in turn, power. Whether this is good or bad depends on how much redundancy/resilient the power grid/communication infrastructure is.
Neither seem to be high on many priority lists though since there is real cost, and an unknown/unrealizeable benefit.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital banking would be a huge win for tax collection, gov payment tracking, as a national ID system for citizenship.

exactly it would be a huge win for centralized power and control
central banks would then actually be able to go true with their proposed NIRP (negative interest rates pollicy), cause without cash you eliminate the possibility of a bank run

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

How does giving the kids an Allowance work?
How about the kids who shovel your driveway?
Is cash more popular with the Muslim immigrants?

Re: An advanced nation

[terrycarlino]

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get you.

Re: An advanced nation

[terrycarlino]

We're all going to be F^%$ when that solar EMP hits the Earth and everything goes down. With luck some stuff might be back in a month or so, but by then we'll have lost most everyone in the cities and suburbs.

Re:An advanced nation

[terrycarlino]

Who and why is easy. A cash society benefits anyone who doesn't want to be tracked. That extends from everyone who wants to break the law to those who don't want the government to have absolute control over them.

The fact is though that people with bad intentions are the ones most likely to actually have the power to prevent a cashless society. Specifically people in government positions who don't want bribes to be tracked, for example. No matter how enlightened you might think a society is there will always be things that are against the law to have. Criminals who deal in these products need untraceable cash. They often will be on the other side of the bribe of government officials. Likewise there will always be corporations, companies, individuals who have bad intentions and want to escape scrutiny or consequences for their actions. They also to need untraceable cash.

Re:An advanced nation

[terrycarlino]

One of the greatest forces preventing government misuse is the commonality of culture. It is easy to trust a government made up of people who all have similar values. Monocultural societies are generally less violent, have lower crime rates and are more civil.

As Sweden becomes more multicultural I expect that they will see a great change in many things. Time will tell

Re:An advanced nation

[dave420]

How do you manage to keep safe from these imaginary brown people?? You poor snowflake!

Re:An advanced nation

[Raenex]

How do you manage to keep safe from these imaginary brown people??

He's probably not a woman, and doesn't attend concerts, swimming pools, jogging, or New Year's Eve celebrations.

You poor snowflake!

How brave of you to brush under the rug the real "rape culture" being imported into Europe and other Western countries.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

An average person of average IQ should be able to use a bank card to buy something.

I think you're totally misunderstanding pretty much everything about the issue.

Yes, people can. But why would they want to? Everyone should be trying to progress from a debit card economy to a cash economy.

Yes, an average person of average IQ can ride a horse 7 miles to work, but for whatever reason, people want cars or trains.

Who needs cash if they are a citizen and have a legal bank account?

100% of the citizens with legal bank accounts need cash.

So every bank account would be connected to a real Swedish citizen. A person allowed to be in Sweden who has the correct ID. .. The bank end is safe and only allows the correct people to legally open and keep a working bank account.

See the problems? You're explaining society's need for cash, right there.

Why the need to rush back to cash that cant be traced?

If there are problems with cash, that would be the motivation to rush. The rush can be eliminated as long as they get cash working, so that people can buy things without the government having the capacity to know who sold what to whom.

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

Dougy: We keep robbin' banks but we never get to keep the money.

Emil: Takes money to make money. We steal money to buy coke then sell the coke to make even more money. Capital investment, man.

Dougy: Yeah, but why bother making it when we can just steal it?

Emil: No better way to steal money than free enterprise.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

You're in a room. There is a door, but you cannot easily leave.
Someone is always in the room with you. On a schedule they may leave, or they may not. When they leave, someone else always comes in to take their place.
Sometimes the person with you is nice. They care about you, they want you to be made happy. They can give you things to help you in the future.
Sometimes the person is openly or covertly nasty. They hit you, they demean you. They lie and break promises. They pretend to be good, but they don't actually do anything to help. They may try to send in a worse person after themselves for their own benefit. They're awful.

This is living under an elected government. Sometimes bad people get in. Until we can scan a person's brain and determine if they're a sociopath or narcissist this is not avoidable. Some countries have a better time of things in general because their gov structure isn't a huge target for malicious narcissistic personalities. But you will eventually get unlucky. Thinking you're safe from a bad person walking in your room is naive.

If you were smart, you'd ask for help whenever you got a good politician. Ask them to give you the tools needed to defend yourself from the next person if they end up being less than stellar. Sweden is giving away public protection by being entirely cashless. They're ceding complete monetary control to the government. This makes it, as you said, far easier to catch monetary crime with nearly no effort. It also makes it trivial for a bad actor with power to covertly screw over the people for their own gain.

We've been pretty stable over the last 80 years, considering. It might be tempting to become complacent, to drop protections for convenience. Resist the urge. The storm will come one day. The people will need all tools at their disposal.

Captcha: revolve

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

You can thank a former top general to Napoleon who inadvertently became the King of Sweden for much of what is now called "Nordic" government.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

This is odd. On slashdot for years we were told that Sweden is better than the clearly backwards US partially because of going cashless. Anyone that wasn't was 30 years behind real first world civilization. Now we are told that Sweden is better than the clearly backwards US partially because of Sweden not going cashless, despite the US never intentionally heading in that direction. The same happened with digital versus paper voting ballots too, but on a longer time frame. Head back 12 years or so and see how people from Nordic countries were bashing the US as being unsafe, inefficient, downright barbaric for using paper, and now the reverse.

The evidence is clear: reasoning is being fit to make the US look bad and $country look good, reality be damned.

Re: An advanced nation

[Cro Magnon]

I could have said that in my city, until we got hit with The Great Ice Storm. My power was out a week, and I heard of people waiting 2-4 weeks for their's.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that, at one time, the British had property tax assessed based on how many windows their homes had.

Why?

Because it was deemed too much of an invasion of privacy for assessors to have access to the interior of a home, thus they taxed the only thing they could be certain of from the outside. This is why it is common in old English homes to have windows that have been walled up.

Imagine, people that cared enough about privacy to keep assessors out of their homes rather than letting them sift through everyone's bank accounts.

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

Spin doctors will spin facts to whatever they want them to show.

I'm merely listing the facts of the matter. I don't really care about spin.

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

This goes to the time of Vikings. You're almost a millenia off.

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

Yes, in Dark Souls modded super hard mode.

Play co-op or die horribly.

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

So one day waiting at the gas station to pay is ok?

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

You're speaking of political leanings of the moment.

I'm talking about long term cultural foundation of the bureaucracy.

We're talking about completely different things.

Re: An advanced nation

[nitehawk214]

Serious question. Does the gpdr apply to governments?

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

The only right thing in your post is the word "insignificant", but not with respect to the country of Norway, but pertaining to your knowledge.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't get power outages every time there is severe weather. First of all, we seldom have the kind of severe weather in Sweden that the US experience during hurricane season each year. Second, the bad weather we have do not affect our power systems in urban areas that much. In rural areas snow weighed down trees might damage power lines during winter, but since the power companies are constantly upgrading their delivery paths (digging cables down or being better at clearing along the lines this becomes less and less of a problem).

As for bank support services, what do you need to process payments? The banks systems being up and powered of course. They have redundant systems enough.

Who hasn't redundant systems? The local merchants. If they can get power and cellular data they are up and running. That could probably be provided if the outage was extended. But I have never heard of such a scenario.

And the trouble of not having any light in the store or electricity in the restaurant kitchen is a far bigger problem than the cash register not being able to process card payments. So you are making a mountain of a mole-hill.

Many people prefer not having to lug around cash. The privacy issue isn't that big, but then I do not distrust my banks or government too much either. If I were, I would move! So for me it has been convenience. There were a few hurdles in the beginning, but when they were removed I was a happy adopter of digital payments. I have been (mostly) cash free for almost four years now. I write mostly since once a store gave me back in cash when they managed to scan something twice before I noticed it on the receipt and they corrected it. I would have prefered them to repay the sum on my card but the cashier was stressed out by the long line of customers. I got rid of that cash as soon as I could, I don't carry a wallet anymore and don't want to have cash in my pockets.

There ARE some that do not like this development, and I respect that viewpoint, although I do not share it.

But if we return to the original article, I think it is good that they force the banks to handle cash. If they banks don't handle the legal tender, even if it isn't popular, they shouldn't be able to get the license to be a bank period.

Every private business needing the accept cash? Hmmm... a harder question. I know of a small bakery that went cashless. The owner sometimes paid using her own card when a small kid came in and wanted to buy a cookie for the money they had saved. That meant that she had a little more cash in her purse, but the risk of robberies etc meant that going cashless was worth it even if it was a hassle in those cases. I can imagine that there also was a hygiene factor, not having to handle dirty coins/bills when handling food/bread.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

It deserves to be brushed off. It's not real. Notice how you had 4 easily accesible links for your first claim and zero for that second one? I've told you this before, you're nothing more than a standard, run of the mill racist.

Re: An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with a powerless gas pump...

Re:An advanced nation

[Raenex]

It deserves to be brushed off. It's not real. Notice how you had 4 easily accesible links for your first claim and zero for that second one?

I don't know what you're talking about. If, by "second claim", you mean, "the real "rape culture" being imported into Europe and other Western countries", that was supported by the, "4 easily accesible links". I'm responding to a post about "imaginary brown people". Were 1,500 women sexually assaulted, in public by gangs of men, during New Year's Eve in Cologne by "imaginary brown people"?

I've told you this before, you're nothing more than a standard, run of the mill racist.

Have you? How would I know? You're just a typical Anonymous Coward, talking from the shadows, making stupid arguments, and calling me "racist".

Re: An advanced nation

[tepples]

Based on this article and other results of Google Search for gdpr public sector, parts of GDPR apply to government agencies; other parts do not. The requirement for entities outside the EU that do business in the EU to hire a representative in the EU pursuant to article 27 is among those that do not apply to the public sector.

Re:An advanced nation

[AHuxley]

AC re 'so that people can buy things without the government having the capacity to know who sold what to whom."
What are people in Sweden buying and selling in such large amounts that a government should not know about?
Where is all this cash in Sweden moving to and from AC? Out of Sweden? To other nations to do what AC? Is the cash staying in Sweden to buy what products and services in great amounts AC?

Re:An advanced nation

[LostMyBeaver]

Nope... not an issue of where I got my education. The reason things like Bitcoin gained value is because people were able to market it to the masses through crowd sourcing (or modern day mob mentality) and as people began to have faith in its inherent value, they were willing to exchange other currencies for it.

Scandinavia can not suffer a one-week power outage except in a war time catastrophe and even that would be exceptional. Unlike third-world countries like the American north-east, the power grids are highly redundant and highly distributed. It is possible for small areas to suffer outages, but in Norway and Sweden which are about as big as the entire American east, they are extremely well built.

There are occasional pressures placed on the grids which are a little humorous. For example, Brønnøysund Norway which houses the national business registry and is located in one of the most impressively difficult locations geographically on Norway's west coast can see brown outs when the ovens for metal production in Mo i Rana fire up. This is because of the absolutely immense load placed on the grid by that process and because it's very difficult to extend other segments of the grid into the area.

That said, in Norway or Sweden unless there is a war, even if it's the middle of winter in the mountains, a one week power outage would be extremely unlikely. Even in a war, it would be surprising if there was a long term power outage. In my neighborhood for example, if we suffered a long term power outage, within 100 meters of my house is enough sources of energy to begin a long term production of energy within a few days. It would take years to consume more fuel than I could produce and I'm within Oslo. And it would take very little time to get local stores up and running as well.

So, we're back to what would cause the electronics to fail. That would mean that the national clearing houses would lack the ability to process their payments and perform transactions. This would make the money limited in its scope and it would retain local value. But in countries like Sweden and Norway which are not self-sufficient or even close to it, trade is critical. If you can't pay for what you're importing, you'll need to be extended credit. If you can't process payments with your national clearing houses, you'll have to exchange alternative forms of payments. The government may have these means, but Sweden and Norway have their own currencies and therefore would be required at a national level to negotiate Euro or Dollars because their own money can't be consumed.

So if money is not able to be used, people will in fact lost faith in it.

That said, I'm internally familiar with the national clearing houses in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. There are some weaknesses which could be exploited in their systems because of IT people being idiots. But to give an example of Scandinavian thinking. I was teaching a networking fundamentals course to a major Scandinavian tier-1 telecom provider and they told me I could skip the chapter on security because no one would want to do any harm to them.

Also, in Scandinavia let me make it clear... it would take something truly and absolutely massive to make it impossible to accept electronic payments. This is not the U.S.. This is not the Third World. If there's a disaster which needs to be handled, it get's handled. People don't stand around looking stupid talking to the BBC or CNN. I think it would take a nuclear bomb or an EMP on that scale to even cause a hiccough to Scandinavia. I think that here in Norway, if there was a major incident, engineers and makers will start converging enmass on city center and quickly start planning on how to bring systems back up.

Norway has more knowledge in power production than most any other country in the world. Sweden is generally within the top three countries world wide in building telecommunication networks. Now consider the humans the US waste on things like their military and the TSA. Scandinavia

Re:An advanced nation

[LostMyBeaver]

Strange, over here, the bank simply extends credit from the machine and stores the transaction. I think if it's a large transaction, it may be necessary to call the bank and get an approval code though. As I mentioned I've never encountered it over 1500NOK

Re:An advanced nation

[bingoUV]

Ok, break your country's power grid into Geographically Norway sized countries' grids , and ensure all of them have the power reliability that of Norway. Problem solved.

Learn induction - it may or may not work for fixing your electric power grids but mathematically very powerful.

Re:An advanced nation

[bingoUV]

because here it isn't the government that was the major oppressive force on people

It is true that it was so, and I have no problem believing that Nordic governments today are among the best in the world. However :

1. Past experience gives no guarantee about future

2. Most people have never run into a road accident close to their home. When they return close to home after long drives, they start "feeling" safe around their home. Which is a very false feeling - as most road accidents happen around the homes of people involved in the accident.

3. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Cashless gives an incredible power to governments - the power to almost deny the right to exist. There is no history of anyone in the history having such a power - so any conclusions about how corrupt this power will make the Nordic governments are premature.

However, in this instance, the Sweden government trying to ameliorate cashlessness problems deserves praise.

Re: An advanced nation

[houghi]

So what city or if that is too specific, state or country?

Re: An advanced nation

[Cro Magnon]

Kansas City, Mo. This was back in 2002, so admittedly such outages are rare, but they do happen.

Re:An advanced nation

[dcw3]

Who needs cash if they are a citizen and have a legal bank account? People who cannot prove to a bank they are legally able to open a bank account?

Waiting to hear from our left wing on how this would be racist to require ID.

Re:An advanced nation

[dcw3]

Yeah, your utopian ideas might sound fine on paper, but you clearly have no real world experience in these matters.

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

Again, you're arguing from completely divergent cultural base, and attempting to jury rig conclusions. When conclusions in this case concretely show that you are wrong - government is doing the exact opposite of what you suggest it would.

In fact, Nordic model shows that #3 is opposite of truth. The more power government gets here, the less it is abused. For example, here in Finland police can search your house without a warrant for any suspicion of offence for which you can get 6 months in prison or more. It's almost never abused, because police understands that to abuse this would immediately cause backlash among populace.

It's why we have ethics standards for government bureaucrats being higher than for average citizens enshrined in law. They are expected to behave better than citizenry and be punished more harshly for illegal activity because they represent the state to the people.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point by projecting US values on Sweden. There are major differences:

1. Government isn't the enemy of the people, nor is it seen as one. It's overwhelmingly seen as organisation for the people, by the people. This is common in Nordics because here it isn't the government that was the major oppressive force on people. It was the extremely harsh climate. Government was the means to counter this major oppressive force, and actually survive to modernity.
2. Things like tax collection are widely seen primarily as civic duty, not as a burden. That's why we have "omg your tax rate is WHAT?!?!?!" reaction from North Americans migrating here. As well as "your government fully funds WHAT?!?!?!?!" when they have to go to the hospital, take their children to daycare, or take a university class while living on their own.

Yet strangely enough the Nordic regions also have large problems with household debt, and very high participation rates in the black market - for example, over 50% of the population in Denmark according to some sources. That's roughly 4-5x the rate in most developed nations.

It's almost as if the real view of government is somewhat different from the one given to residents of other countries on forums such as this one. After all, if the policies of government had such overwhelming approval, then wouldn't one expect public support for the government to manifest in a low participation rate in black markets?

High taxes surely can't be viewed as a burden, or so you tell us, and yet many people are clearly making an effort to avoid them - and many of the others are having debt problems.

There's also a lot of evidence that immigrants / refugees aren't getting the same benefits as natives in many of these states, and there's a lot of crime, poverty and other problems in the areas these people occupy.

It's almost as if there is a fantasy version of these cultures presented for the rest of the world to admire, and the reality, and the two are very different.

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

Household has to do with Nordic culture. Here honouring your debt is considered your duty, to the point where private bankruptcy is not available. This has little to nothing to do with government.

I have no idea what you mean by "black market participation".

Immigrants, as I note above are an issue of political zeitgeist, which is a completely different topic from how state bureaucracy works.

Re:An advanced nation

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point by projecting US values on Sweden. There are major differences:

1. Government isn't the enemy of the people, nor is it seen as one. It's overwhelmingly seen as organisation for the people, by the people. This is common in Nordics because here it isn't the government that was the major oppressive force on people. It was the extremely harsh climate. Government was the means to counter this major oppressive force, and actually survive to modernity.

Strangely enough, exactly the same terrible climate exists in much of Russia, and look at the history of that land - government certainly has been the major oppressive force for centuries. It's almost as if you just up made this claim about the relationship between climate and government.

Or perhaps you instantly promoted this idea from hypothesis to theory without consideration of the facts, or history, or alternative explanations, simply because it suited what you wanted to believe was true about the world you live in.

Maybe those Nordic states need to rethink how they're spending their educational budget. It's not like basic reasoning skills are all that difficult.

Re: An advanced nation

[bingoUV]

Future. Guarantee.

Re:An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

Russian climate is actually very different as far as primary inhabited regions go. To make the claim you're making is to be utterly ignorant of demographic maps of the region.

Re: An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

Which is an irrelevant point, because an asteroid can hit Earth tomorrow and end all life on it within days. There are indeed no guarantees of the future.

On the other hand, existing actions most certainly impact future, and to claim otherwise would be to admit to being either severely mentally retarded, or just a dumb agenda pusher. Which considering that you tried to spin this aspect as "guaranteeing the future" is likely what you're doing.

Seriously, yours is a low quality trolling. Up your game.

Re: An advanced nation

[bingoUV]

All the doubts my post was raising were about the future. I agreed about the present anyway, and quite explicitly.

Your reply was only about the present.

It is possible that you don't understand future tense very well. So I reminded you about it.

There are indeed no guarantees of the future.

Your earlier posts do not indicate that you understand this very well. The topic is about giving powers to a government that

1. are not strictly necessary
2. are difficult to revoke
3. have never been tested in this country about future impact
4. have never been tested anywhere else about future impact

Here, by not even talking about future impact when the subject is broached betrays your lack of understanding of this subject. You indeed memorized / Googled the maxim "There are indeed no guarantees of the future"; how about showing an understanding of it in your posts ?

The reminder of "Guarantee" was for broaching the subject of probabilities in absence of guarantees, and things that affect it. In one country or another.

Re: An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

Much better. Ad hominem, combined with a lot of pointless citations of irrelevant points. Enjoyable read. Much higher quality trolling.

Shame it's still trolling.

Re: An advanced nation

[bingoUV]

If you understood the point, you could have made a constructive point instead of name calling.

Re: An advanced nation

[Luckyo]

I have in fact understood the point, that being trolling.

Re: An advanced nation

[bingoUV]

Then why don't you address the original point on which I replied ?

What's the plan when the banks go dark?

[schwit1]

Less than month ago Sweden told its people to prepare for disasters, including possible war with Russia. One of the first thing the Ruskies will do is cyber attacks on infrastructure, which includes the financial system.

Re:What's the plan when the banks go dark?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. They would do it a long time before attacking so that backups and fallback and archives are corrupt.
All links optic fibre, hubs and teleco exchanges get hit, along with tv and radio stations, and power stations as happened in Iraq.
The network would not be dark, it would be black, completely severed, and irretrievably destroyed.

The smartest plan is to set a 'Cloud Data Centre' and sell it at prices so low it wins all the Swedish tenders.
It should be downstream under the shadow of a hydro dam. Job done.

The backup plan for infrastructure sabotage is to let the private sector manage it. Stock it full of foreign employees with an overseas call centre, and links for remote control of key servers. What could go wrong?

Re:What's the plan when the banks go dark?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the first thing the Ruskies will do is cyber attacks on infrastructure, which includes the financial system.

And?

You are talking from a very US-centric idea of what war is.
To you war is when you send a couple of your boys over the ocean to fight while the rest of the country keeps on going as usual.

Sweden operates from the idea that any aggressor will outnumber them greatly. If attacked the entire nation will transition into a state of war. Financial systems will be shut down by the government, not by them Ruskies.
People will either be in the military or work to support the military effort until the war is over.

When you expect enemy forces within your own borders you do not hold back for financial reasons.
If you don't win there won't be a budget to discuss.

Re: What's the plan when the banks go dark?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Swedish government said nothing about Russia in the brochure, that was added speculation by the article writer. If Sweden has a war it will be within its own borders and against those who are already there and seek to overthrow your way of life.

Re:What's the plan when the banks go dark?

[dave420]

Followed, very quickly, by a full military attack, at which point popping down the shops for some haribos and milk is probably off the cards.

Sweden Tries To Halt Its March To Total Cashless..

[Tablizer]

Is it just me, or is there somebody odd about the /. headline? Is Sweden a Siamese twin?

The leading Swedish cashless app just got sold

[gawdonblue]

The leading (near monopoly) Swedish cashless app just got sold to foreigners. Very much time to revert to cash if you don't want your economy held to ransom by incremental fee increases.

Re:The leading Swedish cashless app just got sold

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, the leading app would be Swish ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) and that is owned jointly by the large nordic banks. It has not been sold.

Re:The leading Swedish cashless app just got sold

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about? I genuinely want to know.

Re:The leading Swedish cashless app just got sold

[BadDreamer]

Which cashless app is that? The one everyone uses here in Sweden is Swish, and it is Swedish owned.

Re:The leading Swedish cashless app just got sold

[Anonymous Coward]

As another AC just said this is outright incorrect. What was sold was iZettle, but that is just something you use to process card payments with.

Re:The leading Swedish cashless app just got sold

[gawdonblue]

My apologies.
A month or two ago I read about some foreign (non-Swedish, maybe American?) entity buying something Swedish that I thought was the leading mobile payments platform (at least that is how it was headlined) and thought to myself "Well that's another f'*ing stupid move by Sweden; still falling for the promise of Globalization even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary". Now I cannot find any evidence of any relevant article, only suggestions on Wikipedia that now that Swish is dominant that banks are considering introducing fees for the buyer as well - which is along the lines of what I was suggesting would happen in my original post (yes it's hard for me to say I'm wrong).
I will try to provide links to my sources in future and this should prevent similar stupidity on my part.

Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[tepples]

An average person in Sweden should be expected to be able to legally open and use a bank account?

Including an average child?

So every bank account would be connected to a real Swedish citizen. A person allowed to be in Sweden who has the correct ID.

In addition to Swedish citizens, "persons allowed to be in Sweden" include citizens of other EU countries and immigrants on a work visa.

No low amount of spending would be blocked.

Good luck with that when both the EFT and credit networks charge several cents per transaction.

Is Sweden expecting the lack of grid power?

This can happen and has happened.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[fahrbot-bot]

So every bank account would be connected to a real Swedish citizen. A person allowed to be in Sweden who has the correct ID.

In addition to Swedish citizens, "persons allowed to be in Sweden" include citizens of other EU countries and immigrants on a work visa.

... and tourists.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[AHuxley]

Re "Including an average ...?"
A person would get some packet money as they do cash now...
They would have to learn to use a bank card as they do cash now. Not that much of an extra educational step for an average person who can be expected to understand and use cash. Prove citizenship, add a bank account. The banks can support many new types of bank services for pocket money saving and spending.
Re "include citizens of other EU countries and immigrants on a work visa"
Who would all now have to prove to the gov and their bank they are allowed to stay and work for a set time. Photo ID connected to every account.
When the work visa is not correct, their bank account stops.
No more easy cash and hidden economy with random people overstaying and using cash to hide their spending.
Re "Good luck with that when both the EFT and credit networks charge several cents per transaction."
Banks would have to follow banking laws and support the movement of many amount of currency. Down to "cents" as thats would be a legal network transaction that has to be supported.
Re "This can happen and has happened."
Take some of that collected tax and pay some engineers to look at the grid.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[AHuxley]

Re "and tourists."
Who legally exchange their funds for ... another nations digital currency. A new card with a given amount connected to their photo ID vs getting cash to the same amount...
Tourists might feel more happy to spend more knowing their funds are now digitally protected and can only be used by them.
Another bonus with moving to a digital currency and a win for tourists shopping.
That spending can then be tracked and taxed back to the tourists. Still winning.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[tepples]

They would have to learn to use a bank card as they do cash now. Not that much of an extra educational step

Good luck counting the money associated with your card without having to buy, carry without breaking, and keep charged a card reader and subscribe to cellular data service for its connection to the payment network.

The banks can support many new types of bank services for pocket money saving and spending.

At what ballpark level of fees to the individual end user?

Banks would have to follow banking laws and support the movement of many amount of currency. Down to "cents" as thats would be a legal network transaction that has to be supported.

Watch most banks go out of business as they no longer have a source of revenue to handle the computational load of processing a small transaction. Or what means of compensating the payment networks would you propose?

Take some of that collected tax and pay some engineers to look at the grid.

For decades, engineers have concluded, based on having looked at the grid, that especially severe weather is an excuse for an occasional unscheduled failure. How would you propose to design a grid to survive something of a scale comparable to Hurricane Maria that hit Puerto Rico in 2017?

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't be seeing me in this hellish country any time soon. So much for the "win".

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[AHuxley]

Re "Good luck counting the money associated with your card without having to buy, carry without breaking, and keep charged a card reader and subscribe to cellular data service for its connection to the payment network."
Nations with banks, electrical power and an ID system have had that working for their citizens for some years now.
The card readers work, the cards read. Lost cards are replaced as banks know who is using their accounts and services.
At what ballpark level of fees to the individual end user?
Banks would have to support a national currency. Some basic card would be "free" to use as getting cash is from a bank account is now.
So the end user would not see any change to a cost to use the card as they do cash now.
Re "Watch most banks go out of business"..
Most advance nations have governments that will step in to ensure all their nations banks savings accounts are protected and their citizens accounts don't go "out of business".
Re a nordic hurricane
Sweden would understand its climate over generations. Generations of engineering education with the skills to work with and keep design a working electrical grid.
Working with a nuclear power grid, hydro, solar, wind kind ensures a good grid design and good engineering standards.
Should a town stop having power a "shop" can be powered with a "generator". Banking services can then be supported in that town by bank workers. A bank card with be accepted and the payment will be made. Trucks can bring in needed supplies and diesel until grid power is reported.
Food would be on sale and the shop owner would be selling food. Digital payments would also track any sudden local price changes :)

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[AHuxley]

Instant duty free.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you!

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[LostMyBeaver]

Yes... the average child in 1st world countries can open a bank account. We trust them.

There is also Visa, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, several local options, prepaid visa cards, etc... there is no shortage of options. If you only have cash, go to a local currency exchange and convert your cash to a prepaid bank card.

In Norway and Sweden, when using locally issued cards, there is no transaction fee. The smallest currency is a single Krone or Crown which is $0.12. The cheapest thing I know you can buy in either Sweden or Norway is a type of gum which costs 2.5NOK/SEK which is about $0.31. Even with a transaction fee, it would be covered. Besides, if they raised the price to 5NOK/SEK no one would notice the difference.

Outages happen, but typically not for long. Though with more electric cars burdening the grid, it could get worse. That said, there is always a diesel or gas car somewhere to be found. Those are generators by definition. Biltema, Kjell & Co and many other stores in Sweden sell cheap 12v to 220v converters. Even if power is down for a few hours which I've never heard of, it is generally possible to charge a phone. And the phone network will easily handle more than an hour of power loss. As such, there is always a way to pay in Scandinavia.

If people want to be anonymous about it, there are many many many different anonymous forms of payment as well.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.

So you're happy to just give up 3% of your GDP?

Re: Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[houghi]

Not sure about Sweden, but in Belgium kuds mostly will have their own bank acvount with the supervision from their parents.
Why do banks like this? Because those kids will rarely if ever change banks.

Also I do not pay anything for money transfers throughout Europe, cash withdrawels from any bank in Belgium or most in Europe. The micro cost is a cost for the bank, just like the paper is that they need to send me every month or the card with pincode that they send me when it needs replacement for free.

Look up SEPA and understand that cashless us used successfully in e.g. Europe and China. If that is a good thing or not is another issue.

Just because it is different from what you know does not mean it does not work.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Anonymous Coward]

An average person in Sweden should be expected to be able to legally open and use a bank account?

Including an average child?

The average person in Sweden is 40.9 years old. You picked out a subset of it just to be dense.

So every bank account would be connected to a real Swedish citizen. A person allowed to be in Sweden who has the correct ID.

In addition to Swedish citizens, "persons allowed to be in Sweden" include citizens of other EU countries and immigrants on a work visa.

Yep, I think that was adequately covered by "A person allowed to be in Sweden who has the correct ID."

No low amount of spending would be blocked.

Good luck with that when both the EFT and credit networks charge several cents per transaction.

You are mixing up credit cards and debit cards. One uses a fixed fee and one a percent of the transaction.
Either way Swedish currency doesn't have a coin worth less than the fixed fee so the transaction cost is less than the rounding error you get when you use coins.
Also, the cost of handling coins is more than the transaction fee anyway.

Is Sweden expecting the lack of grid power?

This can happen and has happened.

And is completely unrelated to credit cards.
The cash-registry required by law to be used to ensure that stores doesn't cheat with their taxes won't operate without power and either way both can be solved with battery backup.
Either way I haven't experienced a power outage since the 90's.

Like really, could you at least have tried to get one or two things right?

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Zontar The Mindless]

Good luck counting the money associated with your card without having to buy, carry without breaking, and keep charged a card reader and subscribe to cellular data service for its connection to the payment network.

Who needs a card reader? I can get my balance in about 30 seconds on my phone using either a Web browser or my bank's customer app (both use 2FA, BTW).

If charges for the miniscule amount of data consumed by this are such a concern for you, then I suggest you find a more reasonable carrier.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Zontar The Mindless]

AFAIK öre/øre are still a thing, they just don't bother minting the coins anymore, at least in Sweden, although last time I was in Denmark (~1 year ago), they still used them.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[rtb61]

Every citizen would be required to seek approval from a private for profit corporation, to be allowed access to all the essentials of life based upon paying the required corporate for profit taxes for life, stop paying and die of starvation in the cold on the street.

Any citizen, who challenges any protected corporation at any time, will have their permission to access to all the essentials of life withdrawn. Zero means of survival with the approval of a for profit corporation. Cashless in a capitalist society is a close as practicable to slavery without crossing some imaginary line, lean right over sure, the citizen is now a corporate slave who must pay corporate taxes or be denied access to any of the essentials of life.

Imagine a dispute with the corporation that controls your finances. There start from the point of cutting off your access to your money, because it is no longer yours, it is theirs. Your phone dies because you can no longer pay and the telecom corporation has been informed. You can not catch a taxi, you can not even pay for public transport. Oh yeah, your negotiations with that controlling corporation are going to go really well. Think for a second you will be safe with more than one account with more that one group, fuck off, the first thing they will do is notify each other to make sure you are fucked from the get go.

Any government that pushes cash free in capitalist society is betraying it citizens and those politicians are straight traitors, and should be investigated and prosecuted as such. Cashless in capitalism is slavery, straight up.

Re: Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the balance of my account because I maintain my check book. It's really easy. Dumbass.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[tepples]

The average person in Sweden is 40.9 years old. You picked out a subset of it just to be dense.

I picked a subset through which the average person will have passed. The demographic shift creating too few workers per pensioner is a separate problem.

You are mixing up credit cards and debit cards. One uses a fixed fee and one a percent of the transaction.

Debit cards take a fixed fee and no percentage. But for small transactions (under say 2 USD or 16 SEK), this fixed fee alone can cause the seller to lose money on the transaction.

Also, the cost of handling coins is more than the transaction fee anyway.

I'd be interested to see data backing this up, especially for transactions between individuals. Last I checked, transaction fees were on the order of 0.30 USD, which would be about 2.5 SEK.

The cash-registry required by law to be used to ensure that stores doesn't cheat with their taxes

I was unaware that this existed in Sweden. Are parents required to use this when giving, say, a child an allowance?

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[thegarbz]

Including an average child?

I don't understand your comment. I had a bank account and a debit card when I was 7. What's wrong with that? I needed a parental signature but that's about it. The only thing that changed is when I turned 18 they spammed me with offers for credit cards.

Good luck with that when both the EFT and credit networks charge several cents per transaction.

Again I don't understand. I haven't used cash in ... well days (but I was in Germany). Back at home I have no problem swiping my debit card for a stick of gum.

This can happen and has happened.

I have also experienced this. The world didn't implode when I couldn't pay for petrol. They took my details and told me to return and clear the debt when the power was back.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Cinnamon Beige]

It's that in a socialist society, as well. You don't want it to be possible for somebody to be locked out completely from being capable of doing financial transactions--not from being able to spend money, nor from being able to be given money. And no, having anonymous means doesn't fix this. It's a bad kludge, if nothing else because you are using the present existence of such to pretend that a proper fix is not necessary.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Anonymous Coward]

An average person in Sweden should be expected to be able to legally open and use a bank account?

Including an average child?

I got my first own bank account at the age of 15 since I started getting money from the 1 hour per week job I got at that age. But that is not the norm, so perhaps you should not label me as average but rather exceptional.

But that is not a problem, a parent can open an account for their child. That account can be tied to a debit card and they can use the swedish banks mobile payment app too.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mixing up credit cards and debit cards. One uses a fixed fee and one a percent of the transaction.

Debit cards take a fixed fee and no percentage. But for small transactions (under say 2 USD or 16 SEK), this fixed fee alone can cause the seller to lose money on the transaction.

The business owners can strike different deals with the banks to lower the transaction fees. Depending on if you have many but small transactions (a coffee shop, hot dog or news stand for example) or few but large transactions (say a car dealership) you might want different structures.

Also, the cost of handling coins is more than the transaction fee anyway.

I'd be interested to see data backing this up, especially for transactions between individuals. Last I checked, transaction fees were on the order of 0.30 USD, which would be about 2.5 SEK.

I don't have hard data, but I know that when I worked in a store, sometimes the business owner asked us cashiers to minimize the number of coins we gave back as change (for example paying 21 SEK back as a 20 SEK-note and 1 SEK-coin and not two 10 SEK-coins and a 1 SEK-coin). We always had notes we sent to the bank for depositing but coins we had to buy from the bank and it was costly enough for him to remind us periodically. Customers seldom if ever came in and paid with big quantities of coins. When it was pretty bad the business owner specifically asked us to ask customers if they had coins they wanted us to change for them (for example if we were short on 1 SEK-coins, we could ask them if they wanted 5 or 10 SEK-coins so that the wallet wouldn't be so heavy).

It is not surprising, moving cash need armored vehicles, guards and special measures, in addition to coins being extremely heavy. The new swedish coins are lighter than the old ones of the same denomination to lower transport costs, but still they are heavy when you order a bag of 1000 1 SEK-coins.

Electronic payments needs secure systems, which costs. But with huge volumes these costs will go down. Also, not handling a lot of cash (many stores have automated registers in which you pour coins into a funnel and the cashier feeds bills into a slot, with change coming out of that same slot or, in the case of a coins, a return chute) lowers the risk of humans giving back the wrong amount and with closed systems lowers the risks of simple robberies. This means that you can have less experienced staff manning the cash registers. When I was young, experience in handling money/cash register was something worth writing on your resume, nowadays it is most likely pretty obsolete.

So both systems have overheads and costs, just in different areas.

The cash-registry required by law to be used to ensure that stores doesn't cheat with their taxes

I was unaware that this existed in Sweden. Are parents required to use this when giving, say, a child an allowance?

You misunderstand, the stores cash register (not cash registry) is regulated. So if the power goes out and the cash register dies, you cannot buy anything.

But power outages are very rare can't remember the last time it happened on a large scale, and with the lighting going out in the store and fridges slowly heating up, not being able to use the register is a very minor problem.

I would guess that the connection to the bank would go out more frequently than the power, but still that has never happened me personally in recent times. And if it would happen the card reader would just spit out a paper slip that I had to sign and show my ID to the clerk. That payment would be registered later when the connection was reacquired.

As for parents giving their kids an allowance: They just deposit it into their kids accounts (perhaps even with a standing periodic transfer) and there is nothing more to it. The banks might react to suspicious activities due to mo

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[tepples]

I had a bank account and a debit card when I was 7. What's wrong with that? I needed a parental signature but that's about it.

What's wrong is parents who say "I'm busy; we'll set up your bank account sometime next week" every week, and until then, use the child's lack of a bank account to keep the child in a bubble with no access to earn or spend money. I have seen this happen to a member of a chat server that I'm in.

Back at home I have no problem swiping my debit card for a stick of gum.

When you bought that stick of gum, how much of the transaction did the banks keep as their fee?

[A petrol station] took my details and told me to return and clear the debt when the power was back.

Then perhaps petrol station customers where you live have shown themselves more trustworthy than petrol station customers where I live.

Re: Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[tepples]

The micro cost is a cost for the bank, just like the paper is that they need to send me every month or the card with pincode that they send me when it needs replacement for free.

Where I live, many banks and other businesses charge a monthly surcharge for paper statements as opposed to electronic statements, and banks charge for more than one replacement card per year.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[LostMyBeaver]

They are still part of the calculation system. For example, if I were to order resistors from Elfa in Sweden, each on would cost about 0.03SEK. But the smallest purchasable unit of anything is far less than that. Even then, at the grocery store today, my bill was 500.21NOK for a bag of groceries. Since I paid by card, the .21 could be charged. But you can't possibly buy anything in the store for less than a few crowns... as such, the transaction fee would certainly be covered.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[thegarbz]

What's wrong is parents who say "I'm busy; we'll set up your bank account sometime next week" every week, and until then, use the child's lack of a bank account to keep the child in a bubble

Stupid arguement. A parent that is too busy to help a child to set up a bank account is too busy to bring up a child in a general case. Speaking of children, do you typically see young underage entrepeneurs running large businesses or more likely, the parents who are "too busy" to have children are "too busy" to give them pocket money. As for the bubble? I can't remember needing cash to play as a child. How incredibly bubbled I must have been.

When you bought that stick of gum, how much of the transaction did the banks keep as their fee?

There's a very clear answe to this: Don't give a shit. I paid for the cost of the gum as shown on the price tag (a concept foreign to Americans I know). If there was an additional cost to the business that's not my problem. However in a cashless world the additional cost to the business is greatly offset by not having to deal with cash, the accoutning and managing of which is a significant expence.

Then perhaps petrol station customers where you live have shown themselves more trustworthy than petrol station customers where I live.

Maybe, maybe not. Details were taken down and I'm sure a few people got reported to the police as a result. A large portion of the things you will do in your life will be paid for after the fact. Not every transaction is cleared at the point of purchase, so why do you suddenly have a trust issue in this one example?

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[tepples]

I paid for the cost of the gum as shown on the price tag (a concept foreign to Americans I know).

Is it permissible for a merchant to write "Plus x.xx for small orders" on each price tag, with x.xx being the swipe fee translated into whatever currency is in use? Because that's what merchants will have to add to each price tag as cashless transactions become more common.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[thegarbz]

It is permissible for merchants to merchants to put whatever the heck they want on their price tags providing that's the price paid on the way out. It's also permissible for merchants to have a minimum order for using card. It's also permissible to charge a surcharge.

They do none of that though because there's actual cost savings in reducing the amount of cash you handle, not just in time, but also at the banks which are increasingly charging for cash deposits around here.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[dcw3]

I have also experienced this. The world didn't implode when I couldn't pay for petrol. They took my details and told me to return and clear the debt when the power was back.

How would that have worked for someone on a road trip? I'm on the road several times a year, and w/o plans for a return. Are they going to trust someone with an out of state address to pay up?...I think it's doubtful.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[thegarbz]

How would that have worked for someone on a road trip?

You tell me, you Americans are the ones who still fantasise about writing numbers in a little book, signing a sheet of paper, tearing out the stub and then sending things in the mail.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[dcw3]

Us Yanks appreciate your kind words, but we'll all be please to do away with checks, thank you very much. Personally, I normally carry only credit cards, and enough cash for emergencies. The checkbook remains in my desk, and was used almost exclusively for my former lawn care guy, who couldn't take a card, and wasn't good about keeping track of when he'd been paid with cash, so I had to keep record of it, so the checks made that simple. Once he retired, I've moved on to a new company and online pymts.

But, clearly, you couldn't answer my original question, so that leaves cash or a check as the options.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[thegarbz]

But, clearly, you couldn't answer my original question, so that leaves cash or a check as the options.

Check, bank transfer, payment services, online portals, after the fact credit transactions, it's like you've never done business with someone before. Transferring money after the fact is simple, and it is in fact how most businesses operate when not typing little numbers into a cash machine for someone standing directly in front of them, or do you think the coke man stocks up the fridge and then takes $200 in cash back to his mothership?

I didn't answer your question because I didn't think you were serious when you asked it.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[dcw3]

it's like you've never done business with someone before

Snippy to the end.

Kinda difficult to pay for gas out of town, as my original question mentioned, and get the proprietor to allow you to go get a bank transfer. I suppose if you're lucky, they might have an ATM, or you may have a online banking on your smart phone (available, but not commonly used yet here)

I'm out.

Re:Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe fees

[thegarbz]

Kinda difficult to pay for gas out of town, as my original question mentioned, and get the proprietor to allow you to go get a bank transfer.

It's called business continuity plan. Have one.

I'm out.

Ciao.

Our Swedish cust can't pay import tax even w cash!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was blown away at just how screwed up Sweden has become that its citizens are forced into getting a credit card just to live. This is morally wrong. It's like how many US states are tracking users and sending toll bills far in excess of what those willingly to partake in tracking systems get discounts.

DEC?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this article have to do with Digital Equipment Corporation?
There is no mention of a VAX, PDP-11, Alphas, DEC, Compaq, HP, DECnet, VT100s, or StrongARM.

Dear BeauHD

[ArchieBunker]

Please google Digital Equipment Corporation.

Re:Dear BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Came here to point this out. How quickly the children forget.

Re:Dear BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember using DEC Alphas and DECWriter printers back in the day, but I don't know the reference. Was it US-based? When did they do something with the financial system? Google wasn't helpful in finding what you mean.

Re:Dear BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't. That's the point. The youngins running Slashdot these days don't know what they're doing, and apparently BeauHD saw something labelled "Digital" and thought it was the right tag to put on this article, even though this has nothing whatsoever to do with DEC.

Re:Dear BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! I am so used to this godawful UI that I've apparently been subconsciously tuning out the article tags. I only look at the title and post count.

Re: Our Swedish cust can't pay import tax even w c

[Anonymous Coward]

No you're just too dumb to realise that there are alternatives to the minuscules reality you have experienced.

There are credit cards and debit cards there is something slightly different to a debit card called EFTPOS. Not to mention other things.

Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

They use hand grenades over there, don't they?

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the religious police take cards? Something tells me the tide will turn soon ...

Re:hmm

[gwjgwj]

Yes, they are.

Economic meltdown is an easier attack

[Anonymous Coward]

A far more effective tactic would be to push for banking deregulation via front groups, have a trade war, get a meltdown like 2007, only this time without the abiltity to currency swap.

An attacker within is far more effective and cheaper than outside hacking.

All those warrants held by mutual funds, cannot be covered. There are more of them than underlying stocks.. All those turbos can never pay out at the same time. None of those index funds holds the stocks they are supposed to hold, they hold only enough warrants, turbos and derivatives to meet their expected payout. Freeing up the rest of that money for their own profit generation. i.e. they're flaky.

If there's a bit of chaos, (like bad debts on subprime mortgages of 2007), then the funds would collapse, and the banks would follow, the currency after that, and then the governments.

Sure I'm talking about USA in 2007 (and 2019 here, Trump's financial deregulation + trade war with its allies as the chaos + isolationism makes the currency swaps of last time unlikely, ....everything needed to set off an collapse).

You see Russian propaganda in Poland used to undermine its democracy, and in Czech Republic, it's put in a pro-Russian government.

Sure I'm paining a bleak picture here, be clear regime change in Russia is needed. The underlying problem needs to be tackled.

Checks and balances

[tepples]

The government to see if the money is getting spent legally.

Cash acts as a check on the government's power to shrink over time the set of things on which money can be "spent legally." With the threat of a black market eliminated, what keeps countries from adding 666% more totalitarian restrictions on what can be bought and sold?

In addition, even without electronic payment countries can restrict and have restricted what each part of a paycheck can be used for: see Cuban convertible and non-convertible pesos. That's as if the vast majority of most people's paycheck was paid in scrip (like food stamps) instead of dollars. A shift to completely electronic payment would give the government even more fine-grained (read: intrusive) control over private citizens' private lives. Why is this outcome desirable?

Re:Sweden Tries To Halt Its March To Total Cashles

[Zontar The Mindless]

The headline seems perfectly sensible to me.

Re:Our Swedish cust can't pay import tax even w ca

[Zontar The Mindless]

Nobody is forced to get a credit card here. Where did you hear this nonsense?

Going cashless would fight crime

[Anonymous Coward]

Our current wave of murders are almost all related to the cash drug trade.
Take away cash payments and suddenly these guys will have to find a new way to operate. They can no longer operate with Swedish cash since it is all reported to the "irs".

Next step is Euro, but with the country at large going cashless the only thing they can use the Euros for are their own wares. Suddenly carrying around Euros is intent to commit a crime.

Next stop crypto cash which then gets banned as well. Except for the Swedish krona which is now a crypto currency controlled by the state.

But it will not happen for a while because it creates barriers for illegal aliens which the current leadership want a to keep for votes.

Re:Going cashless would fight crime

[Beeftopia]

When I hear law enforcement officials from a plurality of countries state this, instead of central bankers and economic pundits, I'll be more inclined to believe it's a significant factor.

Here is the actual reality: central bankers crave a cashless society so they can impose negative interest rates. That's literally it.

If you want a pretty good overview of the big topics in monetary policy (and everyone should be interested because monetary policy involves the redistribution of purchasing power - it's interested in you regardless of whether you're interested in it), here's a very good overview of the current state of the art, at an established Washington DC think tank, with the former head of the central bank, and several established high level policy makers and pundits.

OH look

[Anonymous Coward]

Something sensible out of Sweden. Now that's a second.

The banks stole all my lifesavings

[Anonymous Coward]

Be me in Argentina 2001. Have 100 000 USD in savings in bank. Receive less than a third of that after years of the 2001 crisis.

Banks ? NO, thanks. Only a fool would keep money in the bank. Cashless society is just another form of control. Servitude 2.0 , you're no longer a citizen, you are a serf.

Re:The banks stole all my lifesavings

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron! You don't understand neither FX nor inflation.

Re: Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe feesyk

[bn-7bc]

Are not a thing here any more ok visa and probsbly mastercard (not thst I know as i never use them)) take a 2% margin on the exchange rate wen used abrosd other thsn thst no fees thst iI see directly, As for minors thay can get atm catd for the young from adge 13, before that i think (not thst I have checked) their parrents can buy them pre payed visa debit cards,the need for non ekecrronic cash is dissapeering faster tgan you mwy rhing, incidently if the pos goes down for any reason no ne is alliwed to process any sale what sonever not even cash omnes due to new reguukations (at least in norway, but i suspect ir is the same in sweden)

JEWS

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the math. Let me see... Sweden has been flooded with millions of UNWANTED non-white parasitic immigrants over the past ten years, and now the JEW wants to remove cash so that they can control EVERYTHING you buy and do. What's not to like?

With Jews, you lose.

Or should I say: "Oooohhh, the poor jews!"
Because apparently they are 'victims', even though they have enslaved the rest of the planet, and have been responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people over the last century. And the 'Holocaust' is as fake as Sandy Hook and 9/11.

www.nazigassings.com

Why are people put in prison in Europe for merely QUESTIONING the 'Holocaust' tale? Who is Ursula Haverbeck, and why is she in prison at 89 years of age?

Re:JEWS

[Zontar The Mindless]

About 10% of the population of Sweden is either foreign-born or has at least one foreign-born parent. In lots of different colours, from lots of different places.

There are probably more Russians here than non-whites.

Ursula Haverbeck is an unrepentant Nazi. Her husband was NSDAP Party Leader, and her best friend is Heinrich Himmler's daughter.

Knew a Polish fellow in the States who worked for my father and grandfather. Had a long number tattooed on one arm. He acquired it in Treblinka.

Knew another fellow, a retired US Army officer whose unit liberated Buchenwald. He told me how General Eisenhower made sure to get the press there as quickly as possible to document what they found, so no-one could say later that they were making stuff up.

There's a place in the Czech Republic that you should visit, a village called Lidice, not far from Prague. I have. It's of interest because it's not there any more--the Nazis demolished it and murdered all its inhabitants in 1942. Including the children, about 80 of them.

Any more "questions", troll-boy?

Prostitution not exactly legal in Sweden

[Frankie70]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The laws on prostitution in Sweden make it illegal to buy sex, but not to sell the use of one's own body for such services. Procuring and operating a brothel remain illegal.

LOL at the "Digital" icon on this article

[Anonymous Coward]

I am laughing at whoever decided to put the "Digital" icon at the top of this article.

Whoever it was clearly thinks it's just a reference to something digital, and has no idea that the icon is actually the logo of Digital Equipment Corporation, or DEC, which disappeared back in 2002 when it was bought by Compaq, which was then swallowed up in turn by HP.

I think it says something about the age of Slashdot, the lack of change on this site for the last 20 years, and the fact that a lot of people here are probably young enough and lacking the background knowledge that probably didn't even know of the existence of DEC.

What about?

[AndyKron]

And what about people snooping in on your purchases?

Re:What about?

[thegarbz]

Just buy your tinfoil hat with bitcoins like everyone else.

Trace money

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very hard to trace cash and really easy to trace electronic transactions...

Dealing with cash is learned skill

[Anonymous Coward]

When planning to replace something that has been around thousands of years, care really should be taken.

Should Swedes be at a disadvantage when they travel because they don't know how to deal with cash? They don't have practice dealing with cash safety? There are many places in this world where cash is the only payment method possible. 100 yrs from now, that will still be the case. Travellers learn to keep money in different places. A buddy had his wallet stolen with all this bank cards on a trip through Europe. The closest place to have those replaced was 4 hrs away. None of our travel for the next 3 weeks was to a city where replacements could be provided. But he had $500 in a different pocket which wasn't stolen.

I'm assuming Huxley makes more money somehow from cashless transactions. Debit and credit cards are a tax on society, usually 2.5-4.5%. What a racket. If Sweden really wants to help, make a law that limits transactional fees to X amount which is based on the actual cost to perform the transaction, not some %. Someone buying a pack of gum or a car should pay the same transaction fee, since it is just numbers.

Choice is important. If Huxley wants to be cashless, fine. There are times when cash is more convenient and other times when using a bank card is more convenient. Pick what works best for the transaction.

Re:Our Swedish cust can't pay import tax even w ca

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at the very least you won't be able to pay for parking fees in most places if you don't have a credit or debit card or a long-term personal mobile phone contract.
Some of the parking meters don't even accept maestro (which is the alternative for the people who don't qualify for "normal" credit or debit cards due to bad credit score).
Though I don't know if you were pedantic and meant to indicate that a debit card is fine. Either way, there are a few (admittedly rare) places in Sweden where you indeed will be unable to pay unless you have a proper MasterCard or VISA.

*Sweeden* : not like most civilised countries

[DrYak]

Sweeden is one of the country where the nordic model of prostitution was developed (hence the "nordic" moniker).
It's not completely legal as in some other European countries (DE, CH, NL, etc.)

Although the prostitutes themselves aren't considered criminals, every one around them is (e.g.: Amnesty mentions land lord being harassed for "pimping" if one of their rentee happens to work in prostitution). As such in nordic countries, according to findings of Amnesty, prostitute tend to try to keep hidden, and they probably prefer anonymous transaction (so mainly cash). (I might suspect that any financial intermediate accepting to collaborate with prostitutes could be similarly harassed)

But in other European countries (again, like Germany, Switzerland, Netherland, etc.) it's just a legitimate job like any other with everything that entails with it (taxation, social security and welfare, ...)
Most sex workers should be easily able charge your debit/credit cards (there was a salon around making street advertisement that they've introduced even bitcoins. - Yes here around making ads for a sex salon is just as normal as advertisements for any other business, as long as the practical visuals aren't indecent).
as long as they give you the necessary VAT-receipt slip.

Re:*Sweeden* : not like most civilised countries

[davek]

> as long as they give you the necessary VAT-receipt slip.

In what universe does a hooker add value to anything?

Re: *Sweeden* : not like most civilised countries

[Type44Q]

In what universe does a hooker add value to anything?

Any universe in which you're not required to marry them.

Re: *Sweeden* : not like most civilised countries

[dcw3]

^^^ My new hero

Price difference between zero and minuscule data

[tepples]

If charges for the miniscule amount of data consumed by this are such a concern for you, then I suggest you find a more reasonable carrier.

I currently pay Comcast for 1000 GB/mo of wired Internet at home and T-Mobile USA for zero cellular data. My current cellular plan allows for 30 minutes or texts per month, with overages billed at 10 cents per. This works in many but not all places, as I get data anywhere that has a Comcast hotspot. But for use outside Comcast's Wi-Fi footprint, switching from zero to minuscule would require a substantial cost, which I've estimated at hundreds of dollars per year, to upgrade my plan. Do Swedish carriers have a smaller price difference between zero and minuscule?

Bank vs thief

[Anonymous Coward]

If the bank has my money, and I don't have any way of getting it out of the bank, what's the difference between a bank and the usual Nigerian prince e-mail scammer?

The shirt on my back...

[coofercat]

I rather of like the idea that if one day I found myself in a ditch with nothing but the shirt on my back that I could actually rebuild my life. That is, wander about a bit and find some casual work on a farm, building site or some such and collect some cash* at the end of the day. Then spend said cash to get some sort of accommodation and food.

I understand the farmer could pop down the local convenience shop and get a pre-paid card for me to pay me, but realistically, they won't as it's not worth their while. Conversely I can understand that the local hostel probably gets 80-90% of its trade electronically, so if I rock up with my small notes and try to get a room for the night, they probably won't have the obvious means to deal with my cash, give me change, etc.

As at least something of a guarantee though, it would be nice to know that (say) the all banks were legally obliged to accept cash and could turn it into a pre-paid card or whatever. It doesn't seem like that creates too much of a burden on them, and means a sort of 'human right' is maintained.

* Cash needn't specifically be paper and metal money. It could be some form of tokens, or electronic money that doesn't require the recipient has anything to 'receive' it, other than an outstretched hand or cap.

Re:The shirt on my back...

[davek]

You sound like me about 20 years ago.

The space under Pont Neuf is surprisingly comfortable, if you can convince the local Romani to let you stay there.

Re:The shirt on my back...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin is digital cash.

100â note

[Anonymous Coward]

..is 100$ note for ever.

100$ cashless is 99 then 98 then 97 then less and less in fees.

Privacy and Freedom

[ytene]

Let's not forget, actual physical cash is essential, in a modern society, as back-stops to underpin two of the things we tell eachother we value: privacy and freedom.

Without cash, we are forced to compromise our privacy. Want to buy a birthday gift for a loved one that cannot be traced? Want to make a donation to a cause you care about, but do so anonymously? What to give something to that homeless person so they can get a hot meal? You need cash for all of these things.

Without cash, we are forced to compromise our freedom. [ And yes, I know this is a large chunk of "The Net", but it doesn't make it less true]. Want to be able to function in the face of a technological meltdown at your bank? [ Just look at what has just been happening to TSB customers in the UK recently ].

Any attempt to take away cash is an attempt to take away both privacy and freedom. It is the beginning of a slippery slope that leads to a very dark place indeed...

Re:Privacy and Freedom

[thegarbz]

Want to buy a birthday gift for a loved one that cannot be traced?

I don't understand why everyone automatically links the concept of cashless with the idea of a single joint bank account. My wife doesn't see my transactions just because I don't use cash, and you can achieve this grand feat too!

Re:Privacy and Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why Bitcoin was invented. Nobody needs to know about your transaction except you and the other party.

Why the DEC logo?

[menkhaura]

Millenials these days... The "DIGITAL" logo atop the story is the logo of a corporation called DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), who made PDPs and VAXen computers, and Alpha processors. Get off my lawn, and get your history straight!

Re:Why the DEC logo?

[Carewolf]

Millenials these days... The "DIGITAL" logo atop the story is the logo of a corporation called DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), who made PDPs and VAXen computers, and Alpha processors. Get off my lawn, and get your history straight!

Why not? it is Qt to see the old logos again. Perhaps we could also find a use for the old Borg Bill Gates logo?

amazing new technology!!!

[mad7777]

I have a great idea for a fabulous new technology! Here are some of its features:

• Transactions are unhackable. No need to worry about who stole your credit card info every time a retailer suffers a security breach.
• Transactions are not stored in any bank's database forever, to be sold to unknown third parties at any time in the future, for any purpose.
• No middleman taking a percentage of every transaction, cleverly hidden from the consumer, generating a 2-3% drain on the economy.
• Does not rely on any network or other technology - works even when the internet goes down, or even the whole electrical grid!
• Allows the user to know exactly how much money he has and how much he is spending, and never to be in debt.
• Fast as pulling a bill out of your wallet. Never wait for an overloaded network.
• And finally, it is private and anonymous. Your transactions are nobody's business but yours and your counterparty's.

I'm calling my invention cash. Can I patent it??

Zontar starts w/ me I finish it (see ps)

[Anonymous Coward]

Zontar you = a self-admitted loon https://slashdot.org/comments.... !

You make sockpuppets https://slashdot.org/comments.... to troll me with (effete & weak like you Sweden soyboy letting your women be raped by muslims)

&

You blow your easily nullified 'downmodpoints' on me ADMITTEDLY https://slashdot.org/comments.... when you can't prove what I post on hosts files is wrong + You obviously SELF-UPMOD YOURSELF via sockpuppets you make (TrollingForHostsFiles, proof in 2nd link above)!

+

You send me postcards with threats in them too whacko https://slashdot.org/comments.... ?

* LAYOFF THE DRUGS https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org] UBI soyboy!

APK

P.S.=> Don't start up w/ me 1st Zontar https://slashdot.org/comments.... ... apk

Re: Zontar stalks me via sockpuppets (druggie loon

[Anonymous Coward]

Host files are ancient technology just like
The checks we are discussing.

The central bank could do better

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in Sweden recently and could not use some notes that were a year old, as they had been withdrawn from circulation and were no longer accepted over the counter. Astonishingly, banks would not accept them either. I eventually found a money-changer (usually only used for currency conversions) who would. So if the central authorities intend cash to be usable, this was a bad lesson to give: cash can easily become unusable in a very short period.

Dear "HELP ME MOMMY" hypocrite (lol)

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your reason for being unable to produce wares even /. users LIKE & USE like I do (now in Linux) https://it.slashdot.org/commen...

* OH, I know (& so does everyone else to YOUR public dismay & humiliation which your UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts only PROVE for me all the more)... you're a waste of life UNDEREDUCATED all cheap "talk" imbecile.

APK

P.S.=> It has to SUCK to be a total DOUCHE loser like you, lol - but you DO have 1 somewhat redeeming quality (lmao) - CHUMP do-nothing "ne'er-do-wells" like YOU do MAKE ME look GOOD @ your wasted life expense (hahahahaha)... apk

Re:Dear "HELP ME MOMMY" hypocrite (lol)

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you say something? We couldn't hear--we're all still too busy laughing about the time when you bragged about pegging the CPU.

Re:Price difference between zero and minuscule dat

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many options and the plans change regularly, so it is impossible to say. I have WiFi at several places all over town thanks to eduroam (https://www.eduroam.org/) and almost never make calls or send texts so I choose to stay on a really cheap plan ($5.80/month for 0.5 GB at full speed, then unlimited at heavily throttled speed, no calls or texts included but I pay 2 cents/minute or per text). But even at the throttled speed I get I never have problem accessing my account balance with the bank app. This app can be configured to show the balance of a specific pre-approved account without having to log in, so I literally just swipe to the widget screen and the balance on my card appears.

Most people I know have more expensive plans that often include unlimited texts/calls and anything between 5 and 50 GB or unlimited data. There are quite a number of options and the best way to see what fits you is using any of the online services where you can input your usage profile and it will show you what plans with the different operators would cost you.

As for wired internet, I pay $13.75 for my 1Gb down/500 Mb up unlimited data subscription. This is quite low even by Swedish standards, but due to me living in a building that had dark fiber connected a couple of years ago.

Re: Our Swedish cust can't pay import tax even w c

[Anonymous Coward]

You can pay parking with all gas cards like okq8

If you have backup power, your ISP might not

[tepples]

Even if your petrol station has a backup generator or a Tesla Powerwall UPS, the ISP's refrigerator box (DSLAM, etc.) might not, or its battery backup might be limited to voice service as opposed to data. I've seen times when my laptop (with its built-in UPS) and my cable modem (connected to an external UPS) stay on during a power outage, but the signal is lost.

Re: Minors, legal immigrants, and swipe feesyk

[dcw3]

I'm not usually one to be a grammar Nazi, but goddamn, that hurt the eyes.

Cashy Money

[Stubbyfingers]

Is GREAT when the network goes down.

government cash

[Anonymous Coward]

the answer is for the government to issue cash. that's what they should be doing anyway. just cut the banks out of the equation. they are the cause of all the problems. why do private banks issue public money? it always was a scam. .