Author Topic: Cashless Australia  (Read 26429 times)

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Offline cdevTopic starter

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Cashless Australia
« on: March 08, 2021, 08:18:49 pm »
I am reading all these articles about how Australia is going cashless. Clearly the online companies are ecstatic. What do you think?

I'm worried about natural disasters if you cant access your bank account, how will you pay? If there is a solar storm that wipes out the grid, how will you pay? If you have a negative balance, how will you access toll roads?

Video Link: https://therealnews.com/stories/who-is-fighting-war-against-cash-visa-mastercard-bill-gates



Do you use your cell phone to pay now? Obvious, peoples lives will become an open book to the information brokers. In India they just demonetized, suddenly the two top
denominations of cash became worthless. Millions of poor Indians lost their life savings. The Modi government didn't seem concerned. It later came out that a US group, the Better Than Cash Alliance had been involved, calling the Indian demonetization their pilot project.

In a cashless society any problem could become a major disaster very quickly. Also it gives too much power to companies that should never have become as big as they are. IMHO. We see the problem with the GAFA companies. (Google Apple Facebook Amazon)

http://NorbertHaering.de has been tracking the cashless issue.

reference example:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-09/australia-can-learn-from-swedens-move-to-a-cashless-society/12282764



another relevant link: Readings from "The Digital Poorhouse, Automating inequality"
« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 02:41:50 am by cdev »
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Offline ataradov

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2021, 08:25:15 pm »
How many people currently have stacks of cash on hand? If banks go out now, nobody would have access to the money anyway.

All those arguments are very tired and weak.

Also, with a major economic collapse your remaining cash on hand would be worthless anyway. Cash is worth anything only in a working economy.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2021, 08:28:03 pm by ataradov »
Alex
 
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Offline themadhippy

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2021, 08:42:28 pm »
Quote
How many people currently have stacks of cash on hand? If banks go out now, nobody would have access to the money anyway.

All those arguments are very tired and weak.
In a cashless society one failure and your screwed,for example the supermarkets cant  take cards,as has happened several times in the uk, no way to buy your shopping,however with the cash machines still working your able to get cash to pay for your goods
 
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Offline ataradov

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2021, 08:46:17 pm »
What is exactly the nature of the failure that makes all supermarkets not accept cards, but ATMs work?

What if all supermarket cash registers jammed? The won't be able to give you change, so you can't buy anything. This sounds to be as likely as card payments not working , yet ATMs working. Those things are connected to the same backend.
Alex
 

Offline themadhippy

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2021, 09:07:26 pm »
Quote
What is exactly the nature of the failure that makes all supermarkets not accept cards, but ATMs work
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55805777
 

Offline Bud

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2021, 09:10:42 pm »
@ataradov:  AtM network is separate from direct payment ( merchant) network, at least in Canada. Sure they come to a same IBM mainframe at the bank, but this is a long way before they do.
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Offline ataradov

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2021, 09:19:31 pm »
Quote
What is exactly the nature of the failure that makes all supermarkets not accept cards, but ATMs work
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55805777
Ok, so one payment processor went down. Go to a different store. Or wait a bit until the issue is resolved. They are losing a ton of money, so they are very motivated to resolve it.

And even in this case is looks like cashiers could still accept card, just the self service broke. Is is an option for a cash payment at self service anyway?

To be clear, I'm not advocating for cashless system. I just don't see any real arguments against it.
Alex
 
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Offline MIS42N

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2021, 09:21:56 pm »
Australia is not as well connected as many countries. A storm went through yesterday, and a thousand houses still without power. How do shops in the area operate in a cashless society? My car needs oil 200km from the nearest shop so I go to a nearby farm to beg some. How do I pay the farmer? I want to give my 8 year old some money to spend in sideshow alley at the show. Do I give her a credit card? I think going cashless makes more problems than it solves. People may resort to barter and governments would lose revenue. I think there is a point where cash and cashless can exist in equilibrium.
 
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Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2021, 09:26:06 pm »
Australia is not as well connected as many countries. A storm went through yesterday, and a thousand houses still without power. How do shops in the area operate in a cashless society? My car needs oil 200km from the nearest shop so I go to a nearby farm to beg some. How do I pay the farmer? I want to give my 8 year old some money to spend in sideshow alley at the show. Do I give her a credit card? I think going cashless makes more problems than it solves. People may resort to barter and governments would lose revenue. I think there is a point where cash and cashless can exist in equilibrium.

In the san franciso earhquake of 1989 almost all businesses totally shut down for two weeks.
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Offline BrokenYugo

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2021, 09:37:00 pm »
My problem with this move away from cash isn't some disaster scenario. It's that cash is more or less anonymous and straightforward to use, it throws a wrench in the efforts made by corporations and government to easily track everybody and control what gets bought and sold to a degree that would have made the Stasi, KGB, etc. faint with joy, and they don't like that.
 
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Online tom66

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2021, 09:44:13 pm »
I only ever use cash for the local takeaway that doesn't take card.

Other than that, I use my phone to pay for virtually everything.  It fingerprint authenticates my payment, so even if my phone was stolen, I know the chance of fraud is low.   In theory, I can pay up to £10,000 with a fingerprint or other cardholder verification on a mobile device, at least in the UK, although most stores are limited to £250 or £500.

Bring on the death of cash, I am more than happy to see it go.
 
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Offline jpanhalt

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2021, 09:48:47 pm »
My problem with this move away from cash isn't some disaster scenario. It's that cash is more or less anonymous and straightforward to use, it throws a wrench in the efforts made by corporations and government to easily track everybody and control what gets bought and sold to a degree that would have made the Stasi, KGB, etc. faint with joy, and they don't like that.

I agree.  In the US, there is still incentive and advantage to using cash.  I live in an area with a lot of Amish.  They are a cash economy.  Why pay a credit card company 3% to 5% (or more) for every transaction?
 

Offline sleemanj

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2021, 09:52:58 pm »
In a cashless society one failure and your screwed,for example the supermarkets cant  take cards,

I don't know about in the UK, but here in NZ if an EFTPOS terminal loses connection it will still work in offline mode, where in the merchant can process transactions with certain limits and those will be batched up and transferred when the network comes back online again.

If there's no power, find a merchant with a generator (or a zip-zap) :-)


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Offline themadhippy

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2021, 09:54:20 pm »
Quote
so one payment processor went down. Go to a different store. Or wait a bit until the issue is resolved
.
And if the affected store is the only one in your village,you dont drive and the next bus to the nearest town is 2 or 3 days away?
Quote
And even in this case is looks like cashiers could still accept card, just the self service broke
No it was ALL card payments at any till
Quote
Is is an option for a cash payment at self service anyway?
yep,at least im my local supermarket
« Last Edit: March 08, 2021, 09:58:06 pm by themadhippy »
 

Offline sleemanj

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2021, 09:58:41 pm »
And if the affected store is the only one in your village,you dont drive and the next bus to the nearest town is 2 or 3 days away?

What if the store closed down?  What if the store burned down?  What if the owner died?  What if...

There are plenty of ways in which your only-store-in-the-village could become unavailable.  If you are in that situation, you should have a backup plan for getting to another one, or at least have sufficient provisions until you can sort something out.
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Offline vad

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2021, 10:01:50 pm »
Quote
How many people currently have stacks of cash on hand? If banks go out now, nobody would have access to the money anyway.

All those arguments are very tired and weak.
In a cashless society one failure and your screwed,for example the supermarkets cant  take cards,as has happened several times in the uk, no way to buy your shopping,however with the cash machines still working your able to get cash to pay for your goods

If payment gateway is down, merchants can do offline credit card processing.

If you are out of cash, I doubt supermarket will put your groceries on tab.
 

Online tom66

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #16 on: March 08, 2021, 10:25:53 pm »
In a cashless society one failure and your screwed,for example the supermarkets cant  take cards,

I don't know about in the UK, but here in NZ if an EFTPOS terminal loses connection it will still work in offline mode, where in the merchant can process transactions with certain limits and those will be batched up and transferred when the network comes back online again.

Also works if the phone does not have a signal to do Apple Pay, etc.  The cryptographic authentication can work for some time before it requires a connection.
The only disadvantage is the phone doesn't track the payment amounts (that's done by the POS) without a signal, so if you pay without a signal/Wi-Fi you can get a confusing notification a few days later telling you, you've just made a payment of amount £x.
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #17 on: March 08, 2021, 10:49:16 pm »
What is exactly the nature of the failure that makes all supermarkets not accept cards, but ATMs work?

When the people processing the card transactions for the supermarkets are not the same people doing the processing for the cash machines.

This actually happened around 3 weeks ago in the UK. The card processor that Morrisons and the Co-Op use for till transactions (ACI) fell over. I was in Morrisons when this happened and had to use some of the cash that has been sitting untouched in my wallet for a year. Other people had to trudge out to the cash machine outside (which was working) and trudge back in again with real cold hard cash.

Details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55805777
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Online nctnico

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #18 on: March 08, 2021, 11:10:10 pm »
How many people currently have stacks of cash on hand? If banks go out now, nobody would have access to the money anyway.

All those arguments are very tired and weak.

Also, with a major economic collapse your remaining cash on hand would be worthless anyway. Cash is worth anything only in a working economy.
I agree. I do have some cash on hand and some in my wallet but I never use it. NFC payments using a debit card are great. Over here it seems only old people use cash nowadays. If things are so bad I can't pay at the supermarket using my debit card they are likely not able to accept cash as well.
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Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #19 on: March 09, 2021, 12:13:07 am »
[quote author=vad link=topic=272910.msg3501174#msg3501174

If payment gateway is down, merchants can do offline credit card processing.

If you are out of cash, I doubt supermarket will put your groceries on tab.
[/quote]


    Not around here anymore!  Very few store even have the mechanical card swipe machines anymore and none of the brainless employees knows how to fill in a form.  I was in a store about 3 years ago and their PC based cash register was broken and they couldn't take credit cars so I offered to pay in cash. But the three employees, including a so called manager, in the store couldn't figure out to find the price of the item without a working computer. I tried to tell them that it was printed on the sticker on the shelf where the item was located but they wouldn't accept that. They also had NO idea of how to compute the sales tax and also didn't even know what the sales tax rate was!!!

  Like it or not, we're headed to a cashless society; the banks and credit card companies are pushing it so that they can take ~3% off of the top of every transaction, the government wants it so that they can get ALL of the sales taxes that they're due, the retail companies want it to in order to make their accounting and inventory control easier and so that they don't have to worry about robberies etc, and the new breed of brain-dead minimum wage of $15 per hour employees will require it!
« Last Edit: March 09, 2021, 12:15:28 am by Stray Electron »
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #20 on: March 09, 2021, 02:37:16 am »
Perhaps this is a good reason to support cryptocurrencies and a wireless mesh network (using LoRa or similar) to enable transactions without depending on the Internet.
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Offline 25 CPS

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #21 on: March 09, 2021, 02:56:32 am »
@ataradov:  AtM network is separate from direct payment ( merchant) network, at least in Canada. Sure they come to a same IBM mainframe at the bank, but this is a long way before they do.

This has to be 15-17 years ago now, but do you remember that spectacular failure TD had where all of their bank machines went down and the other four big banks blocked withdrawals by TD customers because they were afraid their machines would be raided and run out of cash but debit (Interac) kept working as normal?
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #22 on: March 09, 2021, 03:22:43 am »
Very true, In the very realistic 2010 film "The Road" there is a post apocalyptic scene set in a supermarket that had been the scene of much bloodshed in a post apocalyptic landscape the empty building was filled with money in large denominations which were scattered around like leaves and blowing in the wind among skeletons and corpses. Maybe its on YouTube.

How many people currently have stacks of cash on hand? If banks go out now, nobody would have access to the money anyway.

All those arguments are very tired and weak.

Also, with a major economic collapse your remaining cash on hand would be worthless anyway. Cash is worth anything only in a working economy.    See https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---inst/documents/publication/wcms_564702.pdf
Lots of info about the huge changes coming at ILO.They try to and put out highquality, info.

« Last Edit: March 12, 2021, 10:01:41 pm by cdev »
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Offline jonovid

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #23 on: March 09, 2021, 03:33:45 am »
Australia may not have money on trees but there is plenty under the ground.
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Offline bdunham7

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #24 on: March 09, 2021, 03:39:29 am »
Iceland has gone pretty cashless, but I don't see it happening completely in most countries for a while.  Last time I was in Germany, every restaurant claimed that their credit card machine was 'down' and asked me to pay cash.  And here in the good ol USA, the magnitude of the informal economy is so great that eliminating cash would cause complete chaos.  People would be trading goats.  And for those you that think crypto will fix this, well.... :-DD
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