Should we replace loose change with swipe cards and get rid of cash altogether?

Question

The metro newspaper reported this monring that The Royal Bank of Scotland plans to introduce swipe cards to replace small change. You'd be able to use them in locals shops for small goods. Is this the end of money as we know it?

Answer 1

i hope not. it would screw small busness who get charged a standerd rate for card charges. pluss how would you pay taxi drivers? or the plumber who tightens a nut and call it £3 for the petrol.

Answer 2

I hope not! It would be another brick in the edifice propounded by Blunkett, Clarke, Reid and Blair: the database state.

I already have the Royal Bank Switch card. I think all their customers in Scotland have the same sort of card. That can be used for any transaction however small.

My concern is that a transaction with Switch is traceable back to the owner of the card, whereas cash is untraceable. Over the years since about 1500 the Banks have expended enough effort to fill a small museum (which stands at the top of the Mound in Edinburgh) on efforts to make banknotes and currency trustworthy. As long as it is very hard to forge a bank note, the seller can trust the currency rather than the customer. That sounds like a trivial distinction but actually it's really important. It means that the seller can verify payment without knowing who the customer is.

Using Switch involves a dramatic loss of privacy. That's why you can't buy a mobile phone with cash in the UK: the government wants to be able to trace your calls. (It's also why you can't buy or use an encrypted mobile phone at all: the government wants to listen to your calls and read your texts.) And you can't buy an anonymous swipe card with cash: all such cards can be traced back to you.

Once records of everything you buy are being made up by the banks, you can be certain that the government will obtain copies of them (as they already do with records of the Internet sites you visit and the emails you send.) The threat to basic privacy, to do whatever legal thing you wish without anyone else finding out, will be greatly reduced. If you don't think these records will be abused, try counting the number of nuisance phone calls you get as a result of the abuse of the telephone directory, which publishes only the least intimate of personal data about you.

If cash is actually abolished it also means, incidentally, that small traders will need to buy and operate expensive equipment and open expensive accounts, which will give big corporate business yet another advantage over the small traders whom they hate and fear.

Answer 3

No way, whats happens if there is a power cut??? A bit simplistic maybe but it would bring a standstill to whole towns!

I'm all for making life simpler but look at this chip & pin thing and the fraud that is happening there.

I own a small business and credit card machines are expensive and if we inadverdantly accept a fraudulent transaction we have to cover the costs and there is already enough of that going on without adding more methods!

Answer 4

I'm all for developing technology and systems, and anything that brings us closer to a society without an economy. But I don't think we are ready for this yet.

How can we donate loose change to charity, and what am I supposed to use as ammo on those pesky pigeons?

Answer 5

I'm all for the swipe cards! Vending machines, drive throughs, gas and now McDonalds.

No more fumbling for cash and change.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

how would we change the entire structure of penny anty giving to the needy and pay the higher prices that vendors will pay to change to electronic money card system, and workers that rely on tips and money exchanges. hard enough for some to live now! to make this drastic change has dire consequences, bad idea!

Answer 8

No way, how on earth are the working class going to survive without the black economy to fall back on?

Answer 9

It will eventually happen, the question is when will currency be eliminated completely. It won't be next year but it will be done before a hundred years passes.

Answer 10

Yes, coinage is obsolete now