Cashlessness may have gone foo far in Norway, government warns | Hacker News Reader

Cashlessness may have gone foo far in Norway, government warns

financialpost.com

34 pointsrmason13 comments

You must describe, in detail, every purchase you want to make, to a 3rd party. You cannot make that purchase until that 3rd party gives permission. It will then sell your transaction history to countless other private and government entities, for purposes unknown to you.

That is cashlessness.

There's never been a better time to be the 3rd party!

WinSmith is hiring roles in our new "cashless society" division. We're looking for experienced devs, product managers, QA engineers, torturers, translators, and internal HR roles, and we already know where they are. Don't worry about sending us your resume- we already have them.

> Don't worry about sending us your resume- we already have it.

As for applying, we will be reaching out to you soon.

In detail? The only detail is amount and company/location. If anything moving to digital receipts would help us track purchases so much better...

Cashless transactions should be faster but instead they're not only slower, but much slower. The majority of US merchants don't support them. I'd be curious how Norway is getting a 97% adoption rate.

Norway has universal instant payments.

https://www.pymnts.com/disbursements/2021/deep-dive-what-uni...

With the above in mind, the Fed is rolling out similar instant payments infra in 2023. Think “Zelle, Venmo, Cash App for everything.”

This is similar to what Bitcoin promised but failed to deliver on. I personally cannot wait.

So now bitcoin can drop the premise and just be digital gold?

I think US merchants don't support them to avoid 1) fees, and 2) properly reporting income tax. I doubt it has to do with transaction speed in most cases.

I can attest to that, account to account transfer is done at the same speed as a debit card use. (Hint in Norwegian banking they're the same thing)

My POV from Sweden, where the adoption rate is roughly the same.

From the merchant's perspective:

- There is a law regarding cash registries, to prevent tax evasion by cash accepting businesses. The cost for getting a compliant cash register is probably at least as high as getting an online payment solution set up.

- Not handling cash decreases the risk of robbery.

- Adoption rate is high enough that not accepting cash payments won't lose you many sales, as long as you accept both card and app payments.

- Adoption rate is so high that only accepting cash payments will lose you a lot of sales. I.e. you need to get that online payment solution set up anyway.

- There are several online payment providers (for instance Klarna) which accept app payments.

From the customer's perspective:

- There's an authentication solution (BankID) which is almost used by everyone. You can use it to sign online payments, do your tax returns, and sign the payment app transactions. On your smartphone, this can be done with the fingerprint scanner. I.e. signing a payment isn't harder than unlocking your phone.

- The payment app (Swish) is supported by most Swedish banks and account transfers are instant and free. If I have your cell phone number, I can send you money instantly. This drove adoption amoung young people who already were attached to their phone 24/7.

- Contactless card payments in stores now have a reasonably high limit (400 SEK ~= $45-50), which makes it at least as fast as presenting cash and accepting change.

For me this is at a point where I can't even remember when I last payed with cash, and cash in my wallet is "gone" in the same way that those £25 in small change sitting in a drawer after the trip to the UK are.

Does the article list actual issues?

They only mention the problem with banks not wanting to handle cash any more, which leaves people who still depend on cash with few options.

Some issues not listed i the article, but which I have noticed here in Sweden:

- Many shops are no longer accepting cash payments, which leaves you unable to transact if you don't have either a payment card (Visa/MC mostly) or the local payment app (Swish).

- Your banks systems doesn't have 100% uptime, and when their systems are being serviced you can't transact.

- Your cellphone carrier doesn't have 100% area coverage, which also makes you unable to transact. If you're a city dweller you probably won't find out until it's too late, and you might have to travel miles to get enough reception to transact.

If it was government plan to phase out cash then it sounds it’s working as intended. I thought there’s something unforeseen like new types of problems or scams emerging.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com