Hacker News Reader

Comment by pelorat | Hacker News Reader

> Bizarre how the EU is penalizing everyone in order to 'make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money'.

It doesn't affect anyone. No one in Europe uses cash for anything more expensive than maybe 200 euros. Of course in some countries like Sweden and the Netherlands no one uses cash any more at all, and almost all ATM machines have been removed. I believe cash-only places are now outlawed. The reason for this is because of the small stores run by immigrants that does you-never-know-what with the money you give them.

> People pay taxes in order to have their bureaucrats serve them by creating a safe financial and social environment

Safe in this case means eliminating those shady cash-only stores. Here in Europe the cash-only stores (nowadays outlawed) were mostly run by immigrants. We're talking pizzerias, barber shops, fast food trucks, corner cafes. Places where a lot of cash is laundered.

God riddance to those places.

View on HN

> No one in Europe uses cash for anything more expensive than maybe 200 euros.

That is absurd. People regularly pay for things like new computer with cash.

And family member was buying a flat recently - seller wanted cash, so transaction took place in a bank. Cash was withdrawn (around 90 000 euro?), exchanged when sale was notarized and deposited.

As I understand, this would not be legal anymore?

Hol up, the buyer wanted cash for buying a flat? And no-one saw anything fishy in that?

Really sounds like your family member accidentally helped launder money.

Entire transaction took place in bank - and cash was immediately deposited into bank and never even left bank building. Not entirely sure why it would be a problem or enable anything?

(and obviously, seller wanted cash) (and it is possible that I misunderstood something)

And I would do the same - just to avoid worrying that maybe transfer is not going to arrive or get reverted or something (that is 100% hypothetical, I do own any housing).

So I am mildly unhappy that it gets outlawed.

Last time I had to do something like this I used a "certified check", which in the EU country I live is a mechanism where a bank effectively prints non-anonymous money that can be exchanged physically.

It would have worked just as well in you example transaction where both parties were in a bank. In my example it worked by exchanging this piece of paper while at the notary.

(This is my understanding on how most of the house sales work in Italy)

What you said doesn't make sense. The seller requested the buyer to pull the money out of the bank into cash and then immediately deposited that cash into their bank account. What would be the reason for doing that?

Doesn't make sense unless you've worded what happened incorrectly by accident.

Lower risk (or lower perceived risk) of money transfer not happening or being reverted.

I would be really anxious if I would be selling something worth 80% of my wealth.

Maybe the entire thing was hilariously pointless? But neither buyer nor seller was expert on this stuff.

(unless seller was hiding really well and it was some 6D chess)

This sounds like how you would buy a flat where you didn't want to make a paper trail.

In the real (non-criminal) world you would have a conveyancing solicitor handle it, and he would take care of the contract, the transfer, checking for liens, stamp duty etc.

How do you even know the seller owns the flat when you do everything in cash?

Why involve, trust and pay an extra fee to a 3rd party when you can just use cash? It seems like it's not fishy in this case since it all happened within a bank.

Paper trail was fully present - with notary certifying that transaction took place and updating records in land registration, preparing tax stuff to pay and record.

I expect that they also checked at least basic status of that property and that it had no mortgage, encumbrances etc recorded in the land register.

I bet that bank also recorded that transactions.

It's a perfectly legal way to buy a property in Germany. Of course this gets abused to launder money because you can also buy a house worth a million in cash.

> and the Netherlands no one uses cash any more

In my one visit to the Netherlands I had to use cash because small places wouldn't take Visa/MC because it was too expensive for them. They had no problem accepting cash tho.

Which Netherlands have you been to?

We dont use cash very often, but we have our own separate payment networks called Maestro and V-Pay. So tourists nearly always have to resort to cash transactions.

> our own separate payment networks called Maestro

You mean Mastercard's brand?

Yes, technically. But you won't be able to use an American Mastercard. Maestro is a debit card, generally it will look like this: https://www.abnamro.com/en/news/pin-needed-less-often-when-m.... I've never seen it in the US.

Any Mastercard/Visa, no matter where it's issued :)

I haven't seen Maestro-exclusive terminals for 10 years, at least with support of Mastercard, but the survivorship bias is hard because my country was a playground for all new tech of both Visa and MC.

The issue is that Albert Heijn, and many other stores in the Netherlands, will not accept credit cards. And then American-issued debit cards do not seem to work either (eg, Bank of America shows the symbol "Debit Visa"). Perhaps debit cards from say Austria work (they're often on similar networks as the Dutch banks).

Sounds like American debit cards have a different code than elsewhere.

Visa/MC is not so widely accepted in smaller shops/stores. However, if you have a maestro debit card you basically have no need to carry cash. I live in Holland and never carry cash, even when going to food markets or when going out for far cycling trips to village areas. Only reason I carry cash (and I specifically have to go to the ATM for this) is when I go to my barber, of which it is obvious, they only accept cash so they can pay some of their employees under the table (something I don't really care about tbh).

Foreigners in the Netherlands must use cash at Albert Heijn, the major grocery store, as they do not accept credit and essentially only accept Dutch debit cards (ie, Maestro).

Ethnic restaurants in Amsterdam, say around De Pijp, often force payment in cash.

Are you sure you really want to pay for items at a 'coffee shop' in Amsterdam by card?

> Are you sure you really want to pay for items at a 'coffee shop' in Amsterdam by card?

They're legal stores, not some heavily armed pot dealer in an alley. Why not?

Tbh I didn't even think of trying the legal weed when I was in NL.

In Denmark they usually charge you extra if you use a credit card.

That's against the law:

> Businesses in Denmark and the EU may not charge a fee for your payment with Dankort, Visa/Dankort, Visakort, MasterCard and other ordinary payment cards issued in the EU.

> Company cards are exempt from the ban. Shops may charge a fee if you use a payment card issued to a company or public organisation.

https://taenk.dk/privatoekonomi/gode-raad/gebyrer-paa-betali...

This is not to be celebrated. It's regulatory, capture plain and simple. Cash purchasers are subsidizing those with credit cards (and the pithy rewards they pay).

What are you talking about? Interchange fees are aggressively capped in the EU and credit cards don't give rewards. It's not the USA.

> It doesn't affect anyone. No one in Europe uses cash for anything more expensive than maybe 200 euros.

LOL, you have clearly never had to build a house.

I'm European, and mostly use cash.

And if the banks decide that they don't want to serve someone like you? Then what?

Or if the banks all decide to introduce very high fees for transactions?

That too, isn't allowed by European law. :-)

> It doesn't affect anyone. No one in Europe uses cash for anything more expensive than maybe 200 euros.

Sold a used car just last year, got 2700€ in cash for it.

Much easier than doing a bank transfer (which takes 1 day to arrive, if you're unlucky, and can be rolled back), or a paypal transfer (which can be undone) or anything else between to individuals.

For b2c or b2b I agree, nobody pays that much in cash, but for individuals transacting with one another, it still seems the easiest option.

Bank transfers in the uk are pretty much instantaneous during working hours, and often outside too

Largely depends on which banks are talking between each other. For many banks and large transfers you need to wait an hour or so for it to go through.

You notice it most when buying a house and you sit awkwardly in a room with the seller waiting for the money to be transferred so you can leave with the keys.

What awful bank have you got where it takes 1h to do a Faster Payment?

Like I said it depends on the banks.

Santander to HSBC is a pretty slow one for some reason.

I’ve had some slow transfers from HSBC to Barclays too.

In Sweden it took about an hour for Handelsbanken to Nordea, so I’m comfortable saying that there’s some kind of threshold that’s universally accepted for large bank transfers during working hours.

I sure wouldn't want to risk discovering I'd been paid in high-quality counterfeit notes. Accepting 2700€ cash feels insane to me.

In Europe do you not have cashier's checks? That's what we use in the US for something like a used car, since most people don't want to carry around a car's worth of cash, even for a short period of time.

You go to the bank, and get a check drawn on the bank for the amount. The person receiving it can call the bank to verify it's valid if they don't trust it. And if you get robbed (or lose it) you can have the check cancelled.

We have money orders, they count basically the same as cash but they are exempt from this law. I saw three in my life. I was given one when I was paid my first salary and didn't have a bank account, and I requested one twice to buy a car in 2011 and 2014.

Yup, that's the same idea. Only real difference here in the US is that a cashier's check is drawn on a bank, while a money order you get at the post office.

Haven't written a cheque in the UK for 20 years.

However I have received them from HMRC for refunds.

It's not a check you write.

It's a cashier's check.

They're not used frequently -- really only for things like closing a bank account, buying a used car, putting down an apartment deposit and first month's rent, that kind of thing.

I haven't written a personal check in close to 20 years either, but I've certainly needed to use a cashier's check a handful of times!

> It's a cashier's check.

cashier checks are equivalent to cash and follow the same limits.

They're not equivalent to cash in any way. That doesn't even make sense.

I would not take the risk selling expensive items with digital transactions for the counterparty to file a fictitious Paypal dispute or credit card chargeback.

Did you respond to the wrong comment? My comment was about paper cashier's checks, not digital transactions.

I wouldn't accept a cashiers check for a car in the US right now, unless the seller met me at their bank so I could cash it. A very popular scam at the moment is to buy a car with a fake cashiers check, then disappear with the car, and a couple days later the check comes back as fake.

...that's why you call the bank in front of the buyer to verify it was legitimately issued?

You don't need to visit the bank, just phone. There's no reason you should fall for a scam like that.

Scammers will just fake a check from an out of town bank and make excuses that they can’t meet during regular business hours. I certainly won’t fall for any of these scams but it shouldn’t take a security specialist to not be defrauded.

Domestic bank transfers in many EU countries are already "instant" and EU wants to make it mandatory for every member without extra fees:

https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/10/26/eu-pushes-for-banks...

> Sold a used car just last year, got 2700€ in cash for it.

where did the buyer kept the money?

> which takes 1 day to arrive

you're saying it like it really makes a difference or like cash is safer and easier to handle.

How much time does it take to deposit the money to your bank account?

Is your time free?

Do you like to lose money and time so that other people can use cash coming from who knows where?

> but for individuals transacting with one another, it still seems the easiest option.

back to question #1 again: what kind of people keep thousands of euros at home?

I know no one who does it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com