[csvan]

Swede here. It is always fascinating to read this kind of rabid BS about the very country you live and operate in - it is as if a completely different society is being described. Whatever brings the clicks, I guess.

This kind of brings me back to Fox News reporting cataclysmic imagery about cars being burnt in my city (Gothenburg) some time back. External "perspectives" are comedic gold, indeed.

[Numberwang]

Another Swede here. Very silly article indeed.

It's strange, whenever you read about something you know a lot about in a newspaper they will usually get so much wrong that the article actually makes you less knowledgeable about the subject.

Makes me question reading news at all.

[MichaelGG]

Can you attest to the push towards cashless? The Credit Suisse says there's certainly a trend towards cash-free with places not accepting cash.

Not using cash isn't inherently a problem. The issue is that the alternatives are all tracked. If systems existed like sci-fi "credsticks" with zero-knowledge proofs (so as to not connect transactions), that'd be fine while mitigating most of the problems of cash (dealing with cash; securely transporting it).

1: https://www.credit-suisse.com/us/en/news-and-expertise/econo...

[fredrik-j]

Yes, there is a push towards cashless in Sweden. Though we're still very far away from going fully cashless in general. The central bank are actually releasing new denominations of coins and notes this autumn, so we'll have cash around for the foreseeable future.

As mentioned public transportation is one area where cash is commonly not accepted any more. Banks obviously encourage card payments over cash and have also been reducing the number of their own offices that handle cash. On the other hand most grocery stores in Sweden allows you to withdraw cash when you shop and charge your card. If you need cash that's the most convenient way to get it.

Entirely cashless stores are quite rare. Maybe it is a bit more common in some big city locations, where the loss of the very few customers who cannot pay by card doesn't matter - simply because the vast majority already pays with cards.

On a personal level I prefer card payments and it can easily pass weeks between the very rare cases where I have to use cash.

That said, I would really not like a cashless society if that means I cannot have any mean of traceless transactions. I want to be able to hand over money to people I don't know or necessarily trust beyond a superficial level, without having to account for it later.

As for cash in the microwave oven... Well, duh, where else would you keep them? :)

[MichaelGG]

Does that mean it's simply not possible to travel on public transit without your bank being able to build a profile on exactly when and where you go?

[fredrik-j]

No, the bank only see who issued the charge, when the charge occurred and possibly which charging station. Not why the charge occurred or what was charged.

For local travel, commutes, etc, you normally get a pre-charged travel card from the local public transit provider. The route and cost of each individual trip is then a transaction limited to the transit provider's internal charging system. You can also buy a single ticket directly with your bank card, but the bank will still only see when the charge occurred, how much was charged, and possibly which charging station, not where you travelled.

Obviously the travel provider's internal charging system will have detailed information about how their travel cards are used to pay for trips. Still, the cards are normally not personal, so the provider cannot know it's the person charging the card that also is the person travelling.

[Numberwang]

I've never seen or heard about anyone being refused to pay with cash if they wanted to.

The only place I would pay with cash though is in a bar, all other places I prefer to pay by card.

I do agree with you there could be problems in the future where digital payments start becoming the only option (which I'm hoping for) and their certainly is a market for future products. I bet they will be looked at in the same way as VPN services are looked at now though.

[mstade]

Many places don't take cash, Yaki-Da[1] in Gothenburg for instance. Many (all?) restaurants on Tredje Långgatan as well, and I've also seen several places in Stockholm where they won't accept cash.

Also, many cities' communal services like busses and trains no longer deal in cash.

[1]: http://www.yaki-da.se (In the bottom right says "Yaki-Da är en helt kontantfri restaurang och nattklubb.")

[Numberwang]

It seems I stand corrected.

[ukkkkkk]

Similar to how Fox News reported that there are hundreds of No Go Zones for non-muslims in England and other European countries, going as far as to claim that Birmingham (England's second most populous city) is only visited by Muslims. Patently untrue, but because of how far removed their audience is from the rest of the world it became accepted as fact.

[raddad]

"They" will do anything to gain public support for their religious war.

[scrollaway]

Sounds about right for Fox News. This is the shit they were "reporting" on in my country:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/12/paris-lawsuit-f...

[sghi]

Don't forget my home town - http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/18/fox-news-apolog...

[vskarine]

if you have time, could you please elaborate on what's actually happening? thanks!

[elliotec]

Nothing is happening in relation to this. People still use cash and they're not going to get arrested for it. And a microwave is a ridiculous place to store anything.

[mstade]

Yeah the microwave thing seems made up. But it is true that large amounts of cash (as in hundreds of thousands, not something like 10k) will raise suspicions. Banks are also legally obliged to report all amounts over 10k I believe, and do impose restrictions on the amounts of cash they will deal with at any given time. Many cards (and ATMs) also have a limit on the amount of cash you can withdraw, although this has been the case for years. I remember when buying a computer some 15 years ago or more – from a private seller who only accepted cash – and having to withdraw cash from three separate ATMs because there was a limit on withdrawing more than 8k or so per ATM. This was on a Sunday I believe, so the branches were all closed.

[elliotec]

All this is definitely true everywhere in the world though.

[mstade]

Another Sweden here. While I agree with @csvan that there's a fair bit of hyperbole in the article, it's not entirely wrong. Swedish society is increasingly moving away from cash transactions, and instead relying on various other ways of payment.

For example: on Tredje Långgatan (a popular street) in Gothenburg, most (all?) restaurants have a policy to not accept cash at all. I've seen this at many other places as well, and certainly not just in Gothenburg.

Another example is this summer when I went to see a concert and wanted to buy ear plugs, since I'd forgotten to do it earlier. The seller I spoke with outside the stadium didn't accept cash, but instead used something called Swish. It's a way to send money with your phone – kind of like Venmo I guess.

The move to a cash-less society has been ongoing for some time, and communal services such as busses and trains in many cities gave up on cash several years ago.

For the most part I think a move to a cash-less (as in physical moneys) is a good move. The problems I have personally seen and been affected by, although not enough to care for paper moneys, are:

- Smaller shops not accepting card purchases below a certain amount, or passing on the processing fee on to the consumer (probably against their contracts) - Banks being very reluctant to handle cash from business; either making it very difficult by imposing strange limits (only a certain amount accepted per day/week,) or imposing expensive handling fees, or both - Being a tourist in a city where you can't easily pay bus fare makes it difficult to get around; for the record: Gothenburg is the only city in Sweden I've seen that gets this right by having card machines on trams, while my home town of Stockholm is a lesson in absurdity when trying to pay the fare

I think the positives currently outweigh the negatives, but as more and more services go cash-less, problems start to show. For instance there have been several high-profile outages where it's been impossible for people to make payments, because the systems are down for an extend period of time. Cash may be expensive to deal with, but you can't (currently) beat it when your internet connection goes down.

Currently, all significant alternatives to using cash in Sweden are technically more or less the same. Swish may have a different user experience, but the payments are still processed by banks and so face the same problems of stability. In fact, the product is proprietary and owned by a company called Getswish AB – a private company owned by major Swedish banks.

Aside from uptime, cash has the benefit of being a point-to-point method of payment, not involving a third party. Swish, cards, and other forms of payments that play any significant role in Swedish society all involve a third party (usually banks.) There are obvious privacy concerns with this, but moreover it also means because the third party authorizes the transaction you can be shut down at any moment and for any reason. Sure, you might have legal options, but that's of little help when you have to buy food and all your money is locked away – possibly due to glitches.

Also, what happens when the banks fail more permanently? Sucks to lose your money, sure, but it sucks even more for the economy at large when there's no way to move money around. It further cements the "need" for big banks in society, since they effectively own the transactions when there's no way to make them without the banks.

I am concerned, but mostly for reasons other than the ones in that article, which seems to treat cash as some magical asset that isn't really affected by interest rates.

[0x4a42]

It's spelled "Faux News".

http://www.thenation.com/article/french-fry-fox/

[anunderachiever]

Also Swede here ... I don't agree with the OP on his judgement of the article which is in my opinion pretty much spot on.