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0 pointsbelorn8y ago0 comments

The way that Sweden did it was in small steps, some which other nations has already done.

Encourage companies to only pay employees through banks by making it practically impossible to pay through cash. Expand money laundering laws so that banks are liable if they give out or take in physical cash, with short and hard limits to ATM's. Make it acceptable to have police confiscate money if a person carry more than a few hundred dollars. Just to give examples of those, a person was stopped by a routine police stop when they saw $350 and confiscated it on the concept that such huge amount of money was a sign of money laundering. A few further months ago a elderly couple (70+) had sold their car but could not put the 10 grand into the bank since the sale papers (including government signed transfer) was not enough to prove definitively that the money was still not part of any money laundering. Sweden invalidated all bills and coins made before 2015, forcing everyone to have them exchanged or put it in the bank which was why the elderly couple needed to put the money in the bank.

Add to that a heavy joint campaign between banks and government to paint any physical cash transaction as putting employees at stores at risk and that its a moral responsibility that everyone only use banks, and a strong decline in the availability of bank offices that handles cash.

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7 comments · 2 top-level

cal5k8y ago· 4 in thread

I actually think this is fundamentally an attack on the right to transact anonymously. Trends towards the confiscation of large sums of cash, increasing restrictions on moving money relating to KYC/AML, and the further emphasis on digital forms of payment give governments and, more worryingly, banks the ability to exert incredible influence over the day-to-day lives of individuals.

Here's a good Canadian example - banks now refuse accounts to "high risk" businesses like money services (currency conversion etc.) under the guise that the KYC/AML requirements involved make it too risky for the bank to service them. And yet, our major banks have huge currency conversion businesses - so in essence these laws are being used to stifle competition.

For merchants, credit cards and debit were originally billed as items that would improve their sales - so who cares if interchange fees add up to a whopping 3% on transactions? But now with almost everyone demanding that stores accept credit/debit, merchants are hit with what is essentially a non-government tax on their revenues. Every "cash back" or "rewards" card is basically funded at the expense of merchants.

ams61108y ago

In the USA also, there is a not-small number of hard-core Christians that would view mandated digital payments as "the mark of the beast" and refuse on that basis.

fjsolwmv8y ago

Cash money also has the mark of this beast, and the number of those fringe wackos is small.

ad_hominem8y ago

> banks now refuse accounts to "high risk" businesses

We have/had that in the US too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

In this case the federal gov't (FDIC and DOJ) pressured the banks. They even attacked a Constitutionally-protected activity (firearms)

cal5k8y ago

It's simply not possible to carry on business without a bank account.

For that reason I'd like to see legislation which makes it illegal to refuse customers on the basis of their business model, so long as it is legal.

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Joeri8y ago· 1 in thread

And of course, the entire purpose of this is to get rid of tax evasion and undetectable criminal money flows.

belornOP8y ago

Yes and no.

Banks want it because credit card transactions are significant (almost infinitive) more profitable than distributing physical money around and having bank offices open for customers. Especially in Sweden where the population/km2 can take a very sharp dive and the distance between banks and ATM's can be far.

Many large companies also wants it. Mass transit want that people get a subscription so that the only one buying tickets is tourists that then can pay tourism prices. Supermarkets want that people user the membership card that is linked to a credit card.

If the purpose was only to do crime prevention then the solution would look very different. Instead what we have is the mixing of multiple interests of strong parties against the interest of everyone else.

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