To wonder if it would be better if we gave up using notes and coins entirely?

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I find myself using cash less and less often. I do wonder if there would be benefits to going towards a system where every transaction was automated. I haven't thought through all the issues, but that is why I have come on here....! Obviously there would need to be ways of enabling small traders to have terminals for contactless payments. Plus, I know that many elderly people do prefer to use cash.

I do feel angry when I think of NRP avoiding child maintenance through the cash economy, not to mention the unpaid tax of cash in hand work...

Would the benefits outweigh the dis-benefits?

Andrew what's the worst that could happen?

In the Handmaid's Tale all money is electronic. A new government takes over and all women's access to money is shut down overnight and their money transferred to their husbands. It's the first step in the total subjugation of women and it's easy to do because it's all electronic.

If we only had electronic money we lose a lot of control. Can you imagine what Hitler would have done with a system like that? Much easier and faster than he did.

Also if all funds are electronic the government knows everything you. No privacy ever again.

How would this work for the Tooth Fairy?

Would our kids have to sleep with a card machine under their pillows?

And would we have to pay a minimum of £5 to avoid a 50p charge?

Huge number of people are bank less & very credit unworthy. Cashless society would be a struggle for them unless things operated on fingerprints (which may not be as unique as we think).

I like cash. Currently helping DS to learn about saving, place value, multiplication, addition, how one number fits into another, I think that would be harder if he only had numbers on a screen.

I would rather use cash - to keep track of how much I've spent I would much rather have an idea of what is in the bank, minus whatever I've taken out of it to spend, rather than using cards all over the place and losing the plot on how much I'd spent until a card gets declined. But I'm fairly shite with money so clearly it's not like that for everyone.

If you got rid of money people would just find something else to use instead.

In our house we are cash only.

No cards or cheque books.

hell no. I'm paid in cash in an envelope with a payslip and that's the way I like it, I don't have a bank account, have to drive 4 miles to the nearest cashpoint and for card transactions I believe you need a reasonable internet connection? even a sh*t connection is unmanageable here.

I prefer cash.

It is easy to just keep using plastic and then you have a look atyour account and you think, I can't have spent that much, surely?

If you have cash in your pocket, then you are restricted by the amount you hold. You have to make choices, not "I can't make my mind up; lets get a couple and I can always return one". In practise that doesn't always happen for whatever reason.

What about children's pocket money - would they all have cards too?

From the number of times the systems break down etc, I'd much rather be able to fall back on cash.

Both my DSs are paid pocket money into their bank account and have a debit card. They are cashless too.

Before that, they did have cash which I banked for them if they didn't spend it.

I doubt that we will still be using cash in 100 years.

The processing of it costs money.

It fuels the black market.

It would make a lot of crimes much harder.

How on earth does cash fuel the black market?

There are some solutions to some of the things, such as school fundraising - ditch the cake sales and instead have a £15 per term or per year donation via debit/credit card.

However paying a teenager to babysit is more of a problem.

Cashless society is a bit like the paperless office, people have thought about it and developed things to make it possible but fee have adopted it.

Less crime, really? I recently had fraud on my paypal account. Username and password combo is not sufficient for financial transactions. If the companies involved get security better, then maybe, but whilst the likes of paypal do not use use Visa/Mastercard secure code for all transactions, or a device to generate a unique transaction code, then the system is insecure. Even with code generators, is it that secure, does the bank really know it is you making the transaction? Credit cards can be cloned, NFC chips can be read by an android phone app. Are the security systems sufficient to prevent fraud?

Sparklingbrook See the references to the Handmaid's Tale for one example.

At a lower level imagine also the hassle when the machine doesn't work. Imagine such small transactions as a gift to a child.

Then there are the people who have no credit card and ought not to have one because they are not creditworthy.

I meant about people knowing what I bought in the shops.

Knowing what you read might tell a lot about you. J Edgar Hoover's FBI pressured booksellers to compile lists of who was buying "subversive" literature; but they did not all comply and you could easily pay cash and give a bogus name and address. But if you ahd to buy your books on plastic . . .

The last book I bought was John Taylor's autobiography. I'm no too worried.

You're an obvious subversive danger to us all . . .

I really am. But I understand what you mean now Andrew, and will try and keep my Amazon purchases in check.

Interesting thread. Marking my place to read later.

as a small business, card payment systems form a large part of overheads. I run an exercise class - £5 per session. I'd be paying at least 75p as charge for taking a card payment. I can't afford for the price to be less than £5 so i would have to charge £5.75. I think card payments inflate the cost of living. I have and continue to research this and because my earnings are under the minimum set by banks and institutions such as Paypal I will always be charged a heft % for the privilege of using their system. So I take cash and then use the cash for day to day expenses - no bank charges and lower prices for my clients. Win-win in my view. I also use cash / cheques for other small businesses because of this.

Can imagine trying to run something like a pub without cash? People three-deep at the bar waiting to be served and you've got to wait for a little machine to check their cards individually? Not to mention that halfway through the evening they will all have forgotten their pin numbers .