What are the implications of a cashless society ?

[SoBoredHelpMe]

ive noticed more and more places are becoming card only and I think it won’t be long (say within 5-10years) that we will become cashless. So I was thinking of positives and negatives and the main negative I see is the lack of privacy as everyone’s spending will be recorded digitally. A major positive though is that it would make it very difficult for e.g. drug dealers to operate ?

would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on this …..

why would it be difficult for drug dealers to operate? They already take cashless payments over snapchat/tik tok etc

A major problem is abused women and children being able to escape. Women in this situation often squirrel away a tiny amount of cash each week and eventually have enough to escape. Cashless payments massively empower financially abusive people.

Lack of privacy, lack of flexibility, more vulnerable to power cuts and cyber attacks.

I don't think it will reduce crime, Criminals normally find other ways of committing crimes.

I saw a program years ago about going cashless, the repercussions were horrifying I decided that I would never give up cash.

I wish I could find the program again, I've searched but not found it.

I don’t understand what you mean - any payments made digitally are traceable - how would drug dealers explain multiple deposits of money into their account and not declaring it as income and paying tax on it?

1. money laundering
2. who asks them to explain it?

There are lots of issues with how a cashless society would work under current set ups. Ultimately its the control handed to others and the lack of choice. At present if I choose to live with cash buried in my garden and live off of that I can. Not sure a model similar to that would be possible under a cashless society, perhaps bitcoin is the equivalent.

Banks don't look at small payments, they look out for large sum. payments for £30 or £40 wouldn't raise any flags. As far as I know banks don't report how much is going in or out of any account unless asked for the info? So the drug dealer would have to be under investigation anyway before anyone was looking at the bank account

A cashless society benefits those who get to charge for the cost of processing transactions, while also claiming to be good for consumers.

It also excludes further the already excluded IMO.

A cashless society is not going to make a dent in organised crime. Your local dealer selling a bag of weed is unlikely to be affected. Their main concern is a functional burner phone.

A cashless society would harm the most vulnerable. Incidentally retail banking as it looks today is not ready to fully go cahsless.

At the point we went entirely digital there would be no reason to even call it "money" any longer.

Given money is based on nothing currently you would just link it to social credit which would be as effective but also induce social change. You could link it to carbon footprint, behaviour, school attendance, vaccination status, or anything you wanted.

Disabled people giving money to others they can risk ten pounds not their pin and card.

What if there is a hack in the shop or bank, cash is a good backup.

I’m sure the government could mandate banks to flag accounts where multiple transfers in were made over a month greater than say £1000, cross reference with tax status and there is then proof of undeclared income which at the very least should have tax paid on it and will often indicate an illegal activity. A lot easier than tracking illegal activity made with cash ?

It is also grim to think that every penny I earn would be subject to taxation by corporations.

Now I get paid £10 cash, I can pay my milkman in cash, he goes to the pub and pays cash, the landlord pays the bar staff in cash, they come and pay me in cash and we earn the full amount of our labour. With a 3% tax to a corporation

I get £9.70
Milkman gets £9.41
Landlord gets £8.75
Bar staff get £8.49
I get back £8.33

And mastercard/Visa paypal get the rest. Why? What have they done?

Most businesses that avoid cash are avoiding the security risk, not the principle. This is their choice but I choose not to spend there.

This is a TERRIFYING prospect. You want the government to be allowed to monitor your private bank account?

Can't see anything going wrong with that idea. Oh wait - wrongly blocked accounts of people and companies legitimately having multiple transfers a month, backlog of work this will cause the banks and the HMRC, having a system capable of dealing with this 24/7/365, HMRC having wrong data and raising an investigation on that and the consequent reputational and financial hit to people and companies - not to mention the privacy implications of all those bank details and the people they're available to and the potential for hacking.

Not everyone likes having the tiny details of their life recorded.

I like the fact when its charity day at school my preteen takes a handful of change to throw sponges at a teacher or try her luck on a game. I could just give the charity the same amount, but wheres the fun it that?

Pr a couple of weeks ago Primary aged child had the Mothets Day shop at school... all done by parents sending between £1-£5 in. The kids feeling special as it was their money, not some virtual thing where parents would then need change refunding...

Car boot sales , jumble sales, charity bag packing, whiprounds at work for someone getting married etc, people who don't have a bank account for whatever reason.
Tipping waiters/waitresses and being sure it actually goes in their pocket...and on and on....

Greater ability to personalise/tailor prices (you COULD afford more, so we're going to charge you more; you're a frequent and loyal purchaser of item, so if item becomes more expensive, you're unlikely to stop buying it, so we can freely raise the price on you, etc.)

Absolutely no way to buy anything if there's a problem with your card/bank account (bank is experiencing problems or an update, your account has been mistakenly frozen, your account has been DELIBERATELY frozen, you have lost your card). You can be deprived of money access at any point.

This is a TERRIFYING prospect. You want the government to be allowed to monitor your private bank account?

Can't think of a better way to bring the banking system to its knees than that suggested system - if that's your aim, of course.

Card only won't stop drug dealing and other illegal activities. We've had two shops that have been closed down by the police in our town as they were fronts for drug dealers. People were going on paying over the odds for pretty cheap items and getting both the item and a "little bag of something" with it! Police were alerted by locals who noticed lots of "dodgy" looking people going in, the owners having flash cars, and the fact that both shops were really uninviting to "normal" customers with poor/unhelpful staff etc. One was a sandwich/pie shop that had a very low hygiene rating and just seemed to random throw a few pies and pre-made sandwiches in the chiller counter (that looked to have come from supermarkets!). The other was a kind of gift shop that was piled high with cheap tat, the kind of plastic crap you win in the amusement arcade "tipping point" style machines. They'd both happily accept card payments and ring them through the till as "normal" sales. The pie shop was first and got a lot of local publicity in the media and SM etc., and that tipped other locals off to the gift shop in a different area, who alerted police to the same kind of activity! Likewise, it's well known that laundrettes, car washes, etc have been used for drug dealing, and likewise, now they accept card payments too!

Criminal gangs seem to get away with millions electronically. You regularly read about people being scammed out of thousands on line. At least if it's ten pound notes in your purse it's unlikely to wipe you out financially.

Shetland had problems with their internet/ phone lines recently, stopping all electronic payments.

Your spending habits can be monitored. Not beyond the realms of possibility that a government could sanction benefits if the recipient bought 'non essentials', i.e. a bottle of wine and a packet of hobnobs.

Vulnerable people may find technology difficult. It's often simpler for people to budget better with actual cash. Low income households rely more on cash.

Easier for hostile nations to damage economy by hacking etc.

IT failures in banks are not uncommon.

Yes. I would worry about the power it gives government in this regard. Tow the line or they'll stop your access to "money" by blocking your accounts.

@Precipice

Absolutely no way to buy anything if there's a problem with your card/bank account

Unless you have loads of cash under your mattress, you wouldn't be able to get cash out of a cash machine either if there was such a problem. A bit of cash in your pocket will only last a very short amount of time, so isn't really a solution, unless all you want is a few groceries or a few pounds of petrol in your car. If the problem last more than a couple of days, you're stuck unless you have hundreds/thousands under your bed.

Read A Handmaids Tale...