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Comment by diebeforei485 | Hacker News Reader

All this concern about the unbanked/underbanked could be more effectively channeled into making banking more accessible IMO. As an example, the city could provide a free reloadable prepaid card to people who qualify as underbanked (based on some combination of income and residential address).

Does this bill mean car dealerships (more popular in the outer boroughs than most people think) and jewelry shops will no longer be able to refuse briefcases full of cash as payment?

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> As an example, the city could provide a free reloadable prepaid card to people who qualify as underbanked (based on some combination of income and residential address).

Then you still have the people who are underbanked for some reason but don't qualify as underbanked under that criteria. The only reliable way to do it would be to provide it to everyone, no questions asked (you can't even require proof of identity or residence, otherwise you'd still have the homeless people who lost their documents and can't get new ones). In the end, that reloadable prepaid card becomes a more complicated, less reliable form of physical cash.

Hasn’t this already been resolved in NYC by the MetroCard? (Which is going away in a few years, last I heard, but it’s a prepaid card that everyone has access to.)

And this will never exist because of money laundering and KYC. Cash is just easier.

NYC's ability to place pressure on retailers in NYC is higher than its ability to place pressure on national and international banks.

Its not all about cash vs non-cash. It can also be about privacy. You might not want some embarrasing item on your bank statement for a number of reasons.

I would love a reloadable prepaid anonymous card i could use instead of my own in my everyday life. I would probably use only that if i could find one. There is no such option afaik where i live though. And we are transitioning very fast to cashless. ( Norway )

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