to be worried that we are heading towards a cashless society?

[WaitingforGalGadot]

I read an article a few days ago about how the Government would like to phase out cash so that everyone is compelled to pay by card or bank transfer, supposedly to make things easier and quicker and destroy the black market.

I actually think this is really ominous as once there is no more cash, there is no more anonymity and your spending habits and lifestyle can be tracked even if you are not doing anything illegal. Big Brother watching your every more.

It also means the banks can impose negative interest rates (where you have to pay the banks to hold your money) on savings accounts to get people to spend rather than see their savings reduced and of course also means that you don't really have control of your own money since the banks can collapse, bail in your money or appropriate it (as has happened in places like Argentina, not too long ago).

Cash is also really useful and personally I don't find it a faff to use cash. I think this is really scary.

Hiding That's why I don't have FB!

Bananafish I don't have a smartphone, nor do I want one, so I don't do apps. I wouldn't recognise a Monzo card if it bit me in the bum, and unless it can be used in Belgium it is of no use to me anyway. I can keep track of cash, because it runs out....when my purse is empty, it makes me think about what I've spent it on.

There is no contactless in Belgium, where I live, and I can't see it coming any time soon. They've only really started online grocery shopping in the past 7 years or so, and internet shopping hasn't taken off like it has in the UK. My Belgian debit card can be used online to pay for cinema tickets and topping up my phone credit, but that's about it. I was told by the bank that the idea of in putting debit card details online was anathema to them.

Coffee is paid for by cash, and lunches are had at home, if I bother.

One of the greatest challenges to our way of life is tax revenues plummeting.

Criminals will find other ways if cash is banned. They're very resourceful. Apparently stolen guns/precious artwork is already the "currency" of choice for serious criminal gangs engaged in largescale drugs/arms shipments. There are shops/businesses who superficially look to be legitimate, but which are "fronts" for crime, where criminals pay stupidly high amounts of money for goods worth a fraction of that (as they also get something else!) - being "cashless" doesn't stop that kind of thing. As for your builders etc., they already "work" for eachother on bigger jobs with nothing going through the books, i.e. on a kind of "barter" system where they keep a kind of mental track of work they're doing "free" for others and expect it back in return on other jobs. Going cashless will only scrape the barrel of tax evasion, i.e. the little people doing small scale stuff - the serious/organised criminals and tax evaders will easily find alternatives.

Thanks for explaining scaryteacher, that makes tonnes more sense if you're in a different country where debit card usage just isn't the norm

Most people I know don't carry cash routinely, unless there's a specific need. That's because we're in cities where cash is much less convenient and rarely used preferentially if other options are available.

If the options to make cashless transactions easy, transparent and easy to monitor in real time and to reconcile after the fact, aren't available where you live, then that's a different perspective

To stop tax dodging we need a land tax
Not that that will address the problem of organised crime

I agree on the land tax.

*>>It is extraordinarily rare for anyone to be using paper in our office

Well you're in a minority.*

Er, how do you know? Depends on your industry, surely.

Our finance and HR departments use paper

Otherwise other departments in my company rarely use paper

Law firms and medical workplaces probably aren't paperless

Many many other industries are. Why would I need to print anything out?

Everything's on paper at my work place...

My friend has split from a 12 year relationship, unmarried and 3 kids. H is paying her bare minimum based on his earnings of £20k per year, she is on benefits and living in poverty. H is an electrician and does loads of cash in hand work and is very well off.

But in some situations surely cash is much more appropriate than a card?? Buying a packet of chewing gum?? Or if you are a child and want to buy a packet of sweets from the local shop? Or in fact giving your children pocket money - will that have to be a bank transfer now?

You want to buy a poppy for remembrance day and instead of popping a quid in a collecting tin you have to get out your card and pin number??

How will the tooth fairy work if she can't leave coins under the pillow?

I could literally sit here all day listing situations where cash is more appropriate than a credit card. FFS. What the fuck is wrong with our government??? I know they are all minted and probably spend large amounts with every transaction but some of us live our lives at a more grass roots level than that and need to use cash sometimes.

I think the politicians are getting more and more out of touch, and are being blinded by the pressure groups and businesses pushing for all these "tech" changes.

We're in the middle of craziness with HM Revenue & Customs wanting to impose every business to do their "books" on online/cloud systems, effectively banning paper records and spreadsheets. Who was driving this - yes, the online/cloud suppliers! There's been such as backlash against it that HMRC have scaled down the plans and put back the introduction dates.

Same with libraries. Our local idiotic council decided to close loads of them "because no one reads books anymore". Err, hello? Loads of people still read books, and they completely missed other factors such as internet access, copying/scanning, audio books, etc. Again, a massive backlash and they're starting to be reopened again.

If I had a business there's no way I'd want all my books on the cloud
anyone could hack into it

We used to keep £100 cash in the house. One day we had a burglary and it was stolen. Since then we either don't keep much cash in the house or put it in the safe.

How would this affect fund raising? Raffles. Tombola. Bottle stalls etc at school fairs etc.

Exactly Frederickvonhefferneffer! Cards aren't appropriate for things like that. Why is this not obvious to the government??? People don't want to whip out their card and pin number for every sodding 20p here and there. Ridiculous!!!

You don't need a PIN for a 20p item.

It's not hard to take open a wallet/purse and take some cash out and handing it over, but it's more effort than taking a credit card out and touching a terminal.

If I had a business there's no way I'd want all my books on the cloud
anyone could hack into it

I run my business accounts purely in the cloud because the API links my accounting to my bank feed API to reconcile all my transactions, and then submits my VAT return to HMRC via their API

I run everything using two factor authentication

HMRC has my tax data
My bank has my banking data
My accounts are with my accounting provider
My email is in the cloud
All my documents are on Dropbox in the cloud

Any one could hypothetically be hacked but my accounts being hacked is less worrying than HMRC being hacked. I use two factor for all the above, I don't use paper for anything

My friend has split from a 12 year relationship, unmarried and 3 kids. H is paying her bare minimum based on his earnings of £20k per year, she is on benefits and living in poverty. H is an electrician and does loads of cash in hand work and is very well off.
Perhaps someone needs to report him to HMRC they don't like tax evasion.

People don't want to whip out their card and pin number for every sodding 20p here and there. Ridiculous!!!

I feel like this about cash! It’s what your used to I suppose. I find it quicker and easier to scan my phone or credit card than dig change out my bag.

People don't want to whip out their card and pin number for every sodding 20p here and there. Ridiculous!!!

Contactless doesn't need a PIN

You can't get on a London bus and pay with cash

You either get a contactless Oyster card and load it up with credit and tap that onto the card reader when you get on the bus

Or you use your contactless debit card and tap that on the card reader

Or if you're a pensioner with free travel you show your pass to the driver when you get on

The entire process is made much quicker when no one has to fanny around with coins

Not suitable for all instances of course, but an example of how coins have been replaced by cashless payments in a very fundamental service.

Contactless doesn't need a PIN Not all cards are contactless and some people just don't like them. Not all businesses have contactless readers, some don't take cards at all - shockingly rural!

You can't get on a London bus and pay with cash I don't live in London, out here you would get hoiked off the bus if you didn't have cash - though I do see that card readers are installed in all buses now!

You either get a contactless Oyster card and load it up with credit and tap that onto the card reader when you get on the bus No idea what an Oyster card is!

Or you use your contactless debit card and tap that on the card reader See above. That and some people don't get given debit cards, poor credit can be a bugger!

Or if you're a pensioner with free travel you show your pass to the driver when you get on Not yet a Twirly

The entire process is made much quicker when no one has to fanny around with coins Is quicker the only / best criteria on which to judge this?

Not suitable for all instances of course, but an example of how coins have been replaced by cashless payments in a very fundamental service I think that outside London, maybe other metropolitan boroughs?!?, we are still quite surprised to see a contactless card, unless in a supermarket.

Of course, as we also don't qualify to have banks in our towns, the last of them round here closes early next year, I have no idea how we will manage. Businesses can't cash up, there's no night safe, and, as we are all really rural, we can't quite relay on wifi and broadband to do all of those nice wizzy methods of payment!

Rushing into cashless payments is leaving many of us out here n NotLondon feeling very much bemused. Of course we have met it but it is not yet our norm. Very many places simply do not have the infrastructure to support it.. and I am talking the basics of a fully functioning communications system that I know won't exist out here for quite a while yet (DHs job is to build it, so he knows the various time frames!).

Is anyone worried about the potential security risk for contactless cards if they go missing? I mean, with non contactless, thief has to guess your pin to make a shop purchase.

I asked Tesco if they could re-send my credit card so the contactless feature was disabled. They said they did not make non-contactless credit cards as there wasn't the demand. They said they understood my concern but that they had controls against fraud and would pick up suspicious activity on my account

@scaryteacher I'm really surprised at that regarding Belgium. I lived in Leuven in 2001 and it was there I was introduced to the chip and pin system, which we hadn't been using at that point. Debit cards were constantly used while shopping. This was nearly 17 years ago.

Aridane Yes, that comes up a lot. I keep meaning to have a look and see if you can either get it switched off, in your account settings, or if it can be damaged/disabled without damaging the card!

DH absolutely hates using his card for anything. He objects mainly to big corporations collecting and collating his personal spending habits. His theory is that of Tesco wants to know what their customers want they should have to bloody work at it, ask a customer or 10, rather than reaping e-data and assuming we all buy what we do out of choice, rather than being left with little option!

It is a lazy blunt instrument and we are all being lulled into a false sense of security, thinking it is for our convenience - it is to maximise profit - I refer you back to us not having any banks in our small towns!

Has fraud gone up since contactless was introduced? I genuinely don’t know.