cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4262252
A combination of good high-speed internet coverage, high digital literacy rates, large rural populations and fast-growing fintech industries had put the Nordic neighbours on a fast track to a future without cash.
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But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and a subsequent rise in cross-border hybrid warfare and cyber-attacks blamed on pro-Russia groups have prompted a rethink.
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The Swedish government has since completely overhauled its defence and preparedness strategy, joining Nato, starting a new form of national service and reactivating its psychological defence agency to combat disinformation from Russia and other adversaries. Norway has tightened controls on its previously porous border with Russia.
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[Norway’s] justice and public security ministry said it “recommends everyone keep some cash on hand due to the vulnerabilities of digital payment solutions to cyber-attacks”. It said the government took preparedness seriously “given the increasing global instability with war, digital threats, and climate change. As a result, they’ve ensured that the right to pay with cash is strengthened”.
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As much as I hate using cash, I understand that the credit card companies charge ridiculous fees to businesses and also that people with very low income don’t always have access to digital forms of payment. Maybe Sweden does better with equipping their entire society with digital tools, but in the US I don’t think we are ready for a fully digital payment society.
I don’t like using cashless anything because I know part of the cost is my privacy. Having said that, convenience is a powerful draw and cash can be a pain, especially when you have to find a spot for small coins.
nobody should be including apple or google spy apps in their payment processing
If you are using Mastercard in the US, Google will be getting transaction data all the same: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45368040
Thanks, now I have to switch my primary credit card. Any concerns w/ Visa?
apple and google is just a small part of the problem. using a debit card is not much better either
Look into Monero. You get the benefits of digital payments, but you get the privacy of cash.
I use monero online and cash offline, because no one accepts monero offline.
because no one accepts monero offline.
With the XMRBazaar map this may change
Probably not, but one can hope.
there haven’t been card fees for end users in Sweden for many years. handling cash is a lot more expensive since you need somewhere secure to keep change, you loose time at the till handling the money, and you need to pay for someone to come pick it up. the time gained from just having the customers pay with card means businesses gladly swallow the fees.
and yes, i’m always surprised when going abroad how much more analog everything is. the nordics and Baltic’s are generally at about the same level (with Estonia way ahead), but the rest of the continent feels like it’s 10 years behind. I was once asked if I really wanted to pay with card in a corner shop in Leipzig, since the card fee was €10.
not that i’m a fan of the digitalisation, it makes marginalised groups even more marginalised. i see my elderly relatives struggling with it often.
The end user didn’t pay directly, but the companies very much pay for this privilege
Which is why Swish, and in Norway, Vipps has been a big thing. So the banks can get that revenue for themselves instead of sharing with visa / Mastercard
It’s extremely disappointing to me (admittedly in the US) that Covid seems to have obliterated any chance for a large-scale investigation on payment processors’ stranglehold on our financial systems. The fees that Visa/Mastercard/etc. charge, especially for tiny merchants with insanely low transaction numbers, are criminal.
In the EU and UK, heavy regulation, especially of Visa and MasterCard, means the fees are actually lower than the costs of handling cash. Lots of businesses want only card transactions because it works out better for them and most people don’t carry any cash so that need to offer card payments, and so it makes even less sense to offer both methods. The only industries who like cash are likely trying some form of tax evasion.
Cleverly, they banned businesses from charging any payment fees and suddenly, businesses negotiated and found suppliers offering low payment fees. We don’t have anything like these convenience fees for paying with cards over cheque that I hear about.
Amex still charges higher fees so many places still don’t take those cards. The value of benefits (air miles, cashback) have gone down significantly but in reality, it was essentially transferring wealth from the poor (who could never get these cards) to the rich, through these fees, so works out better overall.
The banks here advertise that they help everyone get bank accounts and social benefits are paid into bank accounts so I assume everyone is able to get an account. However, I do wonder if some people, especially the homeless, slip through the cracks.
Since taxation is theft, the proper thing to do is evade taxes.
I like my free healthcare, ambulances, fire fighters, roads, drivers requiring licences, drivers requiring insurance, police, trains, buses, general security, employee regulation, safety regulation, building codes, industry regulation, help overseas from consulates, so would prefer to pay a bit in taxes to get a lot back. It might not all be “perfect” but the idea of aiming for a happy and equal society is good.
Ok. The fact that you prefer it (probably because the thieve is mostly kind and generous to you) does not change the reality that it very much is theft from all those who might not agree with your societal preferences, and who did never consent to this.
Since you (or any majority in society) naturally don’t have the right to forcefully take other people’s money (or property) without their consent, it’s impossible to forward that right to the state (or any person) acting on your behalf. It does not matter how good of a deal it is to you or anyone else. That’s why it can logically be described as theft when a state collects taxes using violent force as a threat to anyone who won’t pay.
In Norway and Sweden many places just doesn’t take cash. Probably been around 2 years since I last used cash
Anything from kids bakesales takes digital payment
Yeah, we’re moving that direction in the US as well, but most places will accept it, even if they “officially” don’t, provided you ask nicely and don’t use large bills.
Here, many stores don’t accept cash so I assume accepting credit cards is cheaper and easier than handing cash.
At least in the US, it’s something like 3% for a business to accept cards, so they bake that into the price for everyone. So with cash, they technically make 3% more for each transaction, but they also have to manage the cash (deposit in bank, withdraw small denominations when running low, etc). Since most people are willing to use credit, it’s simpler, though not necessarily cheaper to just accept digital payments, especially when you just need a small dongle for your phone to accept payments.
So in the US, it’s more of a liability/convenience thing than a cost thing.
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In America, you can’t open a bank account without an address. That means that the homeless population can’t open a bank account (not easily, anyway), and therefore can’t get a debit card.
Cashless is a nice idea, but it is extremely prohibitive against the most vulnerable people (which, sadly, might be part of the point).
It’s largely a non-issue in the Nordic countries as you basically have to voluntarily opt out of any government aid programs to be homeless, which understandably most don’t. This goes for most, if not all, vulnerable groups; most of the help is decently robust, at least enough to keep you fed and in housing. So I don’t think it’s a very large portion of the consideration, almost everything is paid via mobile pay, checks (any, not just from working) are all done digitally as well.
Its still an issue for refugees and domestic abuse survivors
Ah yes, socialist practices… look how evil it is… taking care of others.
Inhuman communist savages the lot of them!
In Germany any EU resident has a right to a basic account, in case you’re homeless you should have an address because you’re in a shelter, if you insist on sleeping rough (or the municipality is just too fucked up, happens in places) you can give the address of a social work organisation (those are all over also doing debtor counselling and a lot of other stuff).
Only valid reason for a bank to refuse basic business is if you tried to defraud them. They don’t have to give you a credit line, but they do have to accept your money, store it, and let you wire it (incl. POS payments etc).
Identity fraud is not an issue because they’ll want to see a proper ID which, if you’re legally in the country, you have.
It’s less about paying, though, you can always pay with cash in Germany, it’s about the welfare authorities not wanting to handle cash and cheques only if actually necessary.
in case you’re homeless you should have an address because you’re in a shelter
No homeless person left behind? Shelters for 100% of homeless people at all times?
You have a legal right to shelter, yes. How is that controversial it’s a human right.
The controversial part is that while it’s great and desirable on paper, it’s almost never the case for 100% of the times. Great if it is though.
And it’s also not wanted. A lot of people choose to avoid shelters for a number of reasons.
Honestly, the requirement for an address to get a bank account is stupid, you should merely have to prove your identity, which can be accomplished with a government ID or perhaps a notorized note from a government agency (i.e. you go to the local health center or a social work office and verify your identity or something).
If I wanted to, I could easily fake my address being somewhere it’s not. I get a bunch of junk from the previous residents, and there’s really nothing stopping me from putting someone else’s address as my own (my local family does it when they’re between residences). So I honestly don’t see much point to it.
It’s funny because actually you can receive mails pretty much everywhere without giving an actual address. P.O boxes and post restante. Only banks keep enforcing residential addresses as it was a guarantee of having lack of identity frauds.
t was a guarantee of having lack of identity frauds
I don’t think that’s true, it’s just indicative of someone who’s more stable. That said, I can put down anyone’s addresses and have mail sent to it, my family does it all the time (e.g. my SIL just got married, and they sent their combined bank statements to our house while they were finding a new apartment). All it means is that you can receive mail at a certain address, and that can be as simple as knowing the mail schedule and getting to the mailbox before the residents do (or going through their trash the next day if you miss it).
It’s technically illegal, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting charged w/ accessing someone else’s mailbox… So it’s a pretty low barrier for someone actually committing identity fraud to clear, and a pretty steep barrier for someone who is homeless.
Affordable housing and the threat by malicious actors to attack digital payment systems are two different things. Homelessness has to be addressed, of course, but we are dealing here with something else.
You seem to have missed the point: in many countries, access to a bank account (therefore digital money) is not universal.
I didn’t miss the point, but this is a different topic. We need to provide housing, end homelessness and possibly the right to a bank account for everyone. These are different things.
The risk of the payment system getting shut down and people being unable to make payments for a while is real. And it is one good reason to be less reliant on digital payments.
But there is also the risk of bad actors, which could also be e.g. Russia, getting access to decades of payment history through a hack, if everything is digital. Having that data for every citizen of a country could enable efficient profiling of people in the country using big data analysis technologies.
The kind of thing you could find out with the transaction data is who are working in the military or security police, who is sympathetic to Russia and at the same time vulnerable to work with foreign governments, and potential blackmailing material relating to people in these or other groups. I’m sure the analysts working for the bad actor can come up with even more useful things to look for in the data.
There are of course a lot of other data sources that bad actors are interested in and that are easier to hack, but the financial history seems more comprehensive source of information than most other ones.