[philfrasty]

"Cash has no payment fees" This is simply not true. Take a business for example:

1.) have a cashbox (or multiple)

2.) guard cashbox

3.) every evening count money in cashbox

4.) hope the cash you took in is still in the cashbox

5.) if not 4) --> accounting nightmare + fire employee

6.) bring cash to bank

[PinguTS]

A cash-free business:

1.) have a terminal that supports all the different card types

2.) guard the IT infrastructure according to the PCI rules (have you ever needed to implement those, especially for small shop owners with no IT know-how)

3.) every day/week/month accounting of the payments to the corresponding receipts

4.) hope that the customer doesn't initiate a reimbursement

5.) if not 4) --> accounting nightmare + loss of the reimbursed money

6.) spending weekends (small business) for the required IT infrastructure

[h1d]

1) What's the concern here?

2) Why does the seller have to guard the payment processor's IT infrastructure?

3) Certainly faster than counting cash on top of counting the reciepts.

4) The problem doesn't exactly lie in the cash less system. Dealing with complaint is your business' problem.

5) Reversing 1 entry isnt a nightmare.

6) Are you developing your own solution or something?

[tluyben2]

As a normal merchant you are getting an off the shelve machine which runs on existing infra so no idea what you are talking about in point 1, 2 or 6. The other points, sure, but they are the same with cash and with cashless they are mostly automated. You hook them up to Xero or something and everything goes straight from PoS to there. Cashless is definitely less hassle for the merchant (life altering experiences like being robbed was not mentioned but anecdotally I know at least two wine merchants who sucked up the small costs of cashless after they were robbed) ; the only things they will mention as negatives is the % on transactions and being unable to do stuff under the table easily.

It might be good to know as well that charge backs in the EU are not as common or easy as in the US.

[Retric]

But avoid "Pay payment processor ~30 cents per transaction AND ~3%."

Many businesses can't afford to offer credit card transactions because they would be extremely expensive.

[gruez]

>2.) guard the IT infrastructure according to the PCI rules (have you ever needed to implement those, especially for small shop owners with no IT know-how)

is this really necessary? AFAIK it's only necessary if you handle credit card numbers, which you don't, and can be outsourced to the payment processor so you're not seeing credit card numbers at all.

>3.) every day/week/month accounting of the payments to the corresponding receipts

this can't be handled by the POS software?

>4.) hope that the customer doesn't initiate a reimbursement

probably not a big issue with card present purchases

[therealmarv]

I've read once that the break even cash vs. electronic payment is at around 5 Euros. If you pay more than 5 Euros it's cheaper at the end of month to use electronic payment.

Cash gets more and more expensive (exponentially) on the amount of money (security, deposition etc.). On electronic cash it's like a flat line.

[ballenf]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's cheaper to take one or the other, but if you mostly take credit cards then there is a marginal cost to also accepting cash? And vice versa. However:

- If I'm doing a large cash business then the next $5+ costs me basically nothing.

- However if I'm doing a mostly credit card business, the next $5 will cost me the same as the first $5.

With that, I think the analysis you read was funded by payment processors.

[therealmarv]

It's a good mind trick to look on a single additional transaction. But you are also not thinking about all the costs you have per month for storing, securing, exchanging cash.

But to correct myself: This 5€ break even is on a macroeconomic level on all parties. Cash is more expensive on this level when you spend more than 5€ on a single transaction.

Just one example of the other party: the end consumer also cannot get cash for free (even when he get's it free from the ATM, there are costs the bank has and maybe you pay them indirectly).

[ForHackernews]

Only for businesses that handle large volumes of cash. For person-to-person transactions, cash is the way to go.

[dagw]

Making change in person-to-person transactions is a pain. If I owe you $15 bucks and you and I only have 20s, there is no easy solution other than you owning me money, one of us writing off a debt, or me having to put off paying you. Much easier for me to pull out my phone, type in your phone number and the amount I want to give you and just hit send.

[ballenf]

There are network effects. In Germany, everyone has the change on hand because they're using it so much. If they don't someone nearby will have it and be willing to help.

[harperlee]

ATM withdrawal is not generally free; both the ATM network and your bank can charge fees for withdrawing money. At least in Spain this is true; I think it is generally true at least lso with French banks. Withdrawing abroad is normally with fees.

EDIT: Downvotes in HN are not a dissenting mechanism; they are there to bury inappropriate/misleading/etc. comments (not that I particularly care, but it seems a proper opportunity to clarify a misconception).

[richardknop]

In a lot of Europe it is free.

[aequitas]

Just as free as free shipping, at the end of the day you pay for it someway, like (higher) banking fees, cost for (extra) card, reduced interest rates, etc.

[richardknop]

Interest rates have been basically zero in all western world for a long time. Transferring money in Europe is also cheaper than in US, very few fees if any.

[tqkxzugoaupvwqr]

In Europe, if you use ATMs of your bank’s network, it is free. For example, customers of a bank that is part of the UniCredit group can withdraw money for free from another bank’s ATM as long as this bank is also part of the UniCredit group.

[harperlee]

In reality it depends on the ATM network, not on the bank (different companies!), although fees might be waived by your bank for commercial reasons.

For example, a spanish Santander card is free in the 4B network, but you will be charged on the german Santander ATM, as it is another ATM network (the Cash Group).

[zingmars]

> not on the bank (different companies!)

Not necessarily. Here in Latvia banks manage their own ATMs and whether you will have to pay a fee depends on your bank having a contract with the bank whose ATMs you're trying to use (usually there is no fee for taking money out of your bank's ATMs with a few exceptions, i.e. my bank has a 10% fee on withdrawals from credit cards, though most have debit cards anyway).

[chrisseaton]

> In Europe, if you use ATMs of your bank’s network, it is free.

Who do you think is paying to run that ATM?

[Aaargh20318]

As far as I know ATM withdrawals are free within Europe (if you're a customer of another European bank).

[harperlee]

Again, that depends on the bank. But there is no European legal obligation for it to be free of fees.

[richardknop]

That’s true but practically speaking if you live in Europe 9/10 times you will pay 0 fees. If you don’t travel much (and during travel use ATM at the airport), you might never pay any fees.

[tluyben2]

In my experience in Spain for instance, most ATMs make you pay a fee unless you are with their bank or if your bank pays for it. In north EU a less common see fees charged.

[Aaargh20318]

Why would you join a bank that charges a fee to use the ATM ?

[harperlee]

Perhaps because you save more money on a cheaper mortgage than you spend on ATM fees, as you don't take a lot of money from the ATM because you can pay by card almost everywhere, for example?

[tomhoward]

> Downvotes in HN are not a dissenting mechanism

PG stated very early on in HN's history that downvoting to signal disagreement is reasonable [1], and that's been generally accepted as a guiding principle in the community ever since (though it's not in the guidelines, so it's a matter of individual preference).

What is in the guidelines is this: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[harperlee]

Fair point, I was mistaken on that.

How can the community learn about the rules if we should not point to or discuss the rules? If it were not for my comment, you would not have pointed that to me :)

[tomhoward]

:)

A good starting point, aside from keeping familiar with the guidelines themselves, is to follow dang's and sctb's comment threads, where issues like this are discussed freqquently. That's how I keep up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=sctb

The reason not to comment on things like voting behaviour is that it takes discussions away from their primary topic and into the territory of being repetitive, uninteresting, and sometimes resentful and hostile. Of course that can never be avoided altogether, but it can and should be minimised :)

[tluyben2]

Anecdotal again but for person to person I know few people who use cash anymore; Revolut, Wechat, Paypal and others are preferred: with most of them p2p payments are free, instant and easy.

[nbsd4life]

guarding the cashbox isn't so bad because they have to do the same for the merchandise.

[jacquesm]

No one ever got killed guarding a pin terminal.

[jonknee]

No, because you'll get robbed without ever knowing it (see Target or any number of other large POS hacks).

[jacquesm]

Sure, but the skimmers target the consumers, not the company. Having a lot of cash for places like Home Depot and so on is a real problem. It also enables all kinds of fraud and embezzlement.

[jonknee]

Target registered $252 million in expenses for the breach. Insurance covered $90 million or so, but either way that would add up to a lot of robberies.

[jacquesm]

Pretty sloppy processes if that went on for so long and they didn't notice.