Card payments are done through a middleman (Visa, MasterCard) and therefore require a surcharge that's going to a private company. They charge much more than it actually costs them, even including chargebacks etc, which is how they're able to offer things like credit card rewards. In my opinion it was justifiable back when it was new and not heavily used, but now that the economy revolves around it it's just parasitism, and governments should either cap their fees like the EU does, or, if they want a cashless society, provide their own EFTPOS system that doesn't charge fees to do business.
Taking cash costs money as well: more security, more auditing, more cash transport, higher insurance costs, etc
Even better, because of forced cash now every business incurs those costs even if the overwhelming majority of their transactions aren’t in cash.
The solution to “discrimination against homeless” is not forcing people to take cash, it’s forcing banks to allow homeless people to open bank accounts.
Forcing banks to allow homeless people to open bank accounts only "works" if someone is going to compensate the banks for all the costs associated with those clients.
Banks only "work" because they can earn interest on deposits. Homeless people will likely not have enough deposits to make it worth serving them, and they will likely also cost more in support and fraud.
If you compensate them too little, banks will do their best to wriggle out of it or make it inconvenient. If you compensate them too much, they will become predatory in opening homeless accounts. In any case, the incentive structure is all wrong once you try to force the free market in the wrong direction. And who's going to be paying? I hope it's not me.
So instead we force every business to handle security and insurance related to accepting cash, and we force homeless people to hoard cash and present an enticing target for robbery. Certainly that sounds like a much better solution.
Adding a few rows to a database is not expensive. Hell, even saying you can't charge fees to people with less than $X means not making a profit, not taking a giant loss.
The biggest way to stop "fraud" losses as a bank is to stop automatically allowing overdrafts - this is something that banks only do because their "convenience service" of allowing OD automatically is purely a profit making tool and has nothing to do with convenience is that overwhelming majority of cases. Because those tiny overdraft balances incur massive fees and interest that further cost the victims.
Businesses understand their clientele. Some businesses cater to clientele on the lower end of the economic spectrum while other businesses are on the opposite end. Businesses that fall into the former category would likely continue to accept cash payments while come businesses that fall in the latter category may elect to go cashless in a free market.
A homeless person is not a client, it´s a human being trapped in a desperate situation that us (lucky people) cannot understand.
Cashless society represents a trap for many people that are simply out of the rat race.
Agree that it’s still killer for small transactions. Which is why the US federal government should have long ago offered electronic money transfer as a utility where merchant fees were low even for smaller dollar amount purchases.
Businesses understand their clientele. In a free market, businesses like Gucci might elect to go cashless, while grocery stores, gas stations, and local government will continue to take cash without being forced to since it is in their economic interest to do so.
Cash is a free service provided by the government. Card and mobile payment is a fees-attached service provided by businesses. There is every reason to mandate acceptance of the former, and zero reason to mandate acceptance of the latter.
They've just done that in my country. Every business is obligated to have a way to pay using card (bancontact, payconic, ...). Cashless is allowed and it seems like it's where we are unfortunately heading
Probably because the state has limited ability to compel business relationships, thank God, and taking card effectively means enforcing a business relationship with a duopoly.
The 10th amendment gives states nearly unlimited right to enact any law. Many states literally have emergency power laws which grant the Governor essentially dictatorial powers (to create and enforce laws himself; by decree), which was used for lockdowns and mask mandates.
It's a common misconception that arises from state legislatures doing nothing for several decades, but the power is there.
I'm referring to "The State" not "the states". But otherwise, emergency powers are exactly that. At least in theory they are something that provides the state powers it would not normally have for a temporary period. Ideally with some checks against perpetual maintenance.
Not necessarily. The State can compel cash because it is the state mandated and controlled medium of exchange. Cards are not controlled by the state and thereby compel a business relationship with a private company. Probably if the state controlled cards, then it would have a mandate to, uh, mandate them.
I realise it begs the question a little, the state can mandate cash because it's the state's mandated and controlled medium of exchange, but state power often begs the question.
I'm not really sure how you could ever realize something like this without inventing prepaid cards which go through a card network anyway and are just ephemeral bank accounts backed by real banks.
Any business that is large enough can get their gift cards in retail stores which would be fine. It would definitely create a moral hazard if Netflix had to provide a cash option like this because retail stores would suddenly have crazy amounts of leverage but w/e. But then naturally there would be market need for "accept cash payments for your online service" as a service for smaller businesses that can't just get partnerships with Target and Kroger and the entity providing that service would just be a bank issuing branded prepaid cards but using their own bespoke card network.
Like you can't fight it, you always invent Visa.
You could probably cut card networks out eventually with $as_of_yet_unlaunced_service backed by FedNow but that's not exactly cash and still requires a bank account.
Well, a lot of bills are payable in cash at places like post-offices, and for some, service stations and convenience stores. You go in with your invoice, hand them cash, and get a receipt.
No attack on you, but I feel like lots of people are suffering from not only a lack of imagination, but a serious lapse in memory for the days when they didn't always have a card and not every subscription was an online direct debit arrangement.