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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.
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.
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.
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Nothing, other than apparently that the new Slashdot ownership isn't old enough to remember them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Please google Digital Equipment Corporation.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I still see the DEC logo (hint, it's the one that says "digital").
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 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?
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.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Nobody in Sweden has written a cheque in at least 20 years. The banks here cannot even process them any more, basically.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
Something to confound the clueless with.
You can go back to watching the Kardashians now.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
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.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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)
And what about people snooping in on your purchases?
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?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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...
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get you.
Err....something like CASH?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Apart from the rampant, rampant fraud the cards were brought in to mitigate, they were perfect!
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.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
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?
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
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!
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
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.
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.