Nice to see that there's no limit where I live which is Norway. Hopefully, there are no plans to introduce one.
1) Disallowing a third-party in every single transaction you make, especially as
1a) Inflation means 3k now might be quite low in 20 years
1b) Banks themselves have been shown to be scummy
1c) Banks are a rare institution to allow outsiders into.
2) Bank accounts themselves are not actually all that accessible; it's quite common for people to be ineligible for a bank account under random (but common) circumstances. -- an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
3) Cash is the only fiat currency that actually exists, I know it's trendy to think that lines in a database are meaningful- but if you have physical cash you know what it's worth and it can't be hacked or seized. (though a good counterpoint is of course that you can be robbed or it can get destroyed).
I live in Sweden and we're very far down the path of "cash is dead" - there's a considerable number of stores and fast food joints that do not even accept cash. However, when I moved to this country I couldn't open a bank account and without people accepting cash at that time I would have paid exorbitant fees on each transaction.
So with that in mind I'm not in favour of restricting cash, I'm aware of the drawbacks of large fiat currency transactions; but It gives the central banks even more power than they currently have (which is a lot, which you'd know if you were on the wrong side of a policy or get into one of their loops) and we're not sure that they are going to continue to be fair into the future.
Note: you cannot hold a bank account with the central bank that actually issues currency. You are voting for a middle-man.
Not in the Netherlands. Any adult (18 or older) resident of the EU has the right to a bank account, by law.
> an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
Why would you need to pay a utility bill to get a bank account? Those two things are completely unrelated. All you need is a valid ID (either ID card, passport or drivers license) and you are required to have that anyway.
A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license. (for example: I didn't when I got my first bank account).
My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID. I can say that with absolute confidence after working in financial services (albeit briefly).
In some cases, you can get basically locked out of all essential services, including bank account closures, not being able to make payments (especially now with these laws), etc.
Real fun!
How would you handle those things without the government knowing your address?
I need to file taxes but no one sends me a reminder. My town asks me to verify my address once a year but nothing (other than possibly being eventually removed from voting rolls) happens if I don't. Driver's license and registration are supposed to be your current address but again I'm not sure anything especially happens if they aren't. No one sends me anything to remind me to get my inspection updated.
So I have a supposedly current address on file with various government agencies but AFAIK there is absolutely no rule that, if I pick up and move I have to tell anyone. I do need to file taxes correctly although, as I wrote elsewhere, if I don't have a permanent address that's simultaneously perfectly legal and something of an edge case.
Then why is it only EU countries and authoritarian governments that do it?
> They need to know your address for a lot of things.
And when those things come up, they can ask your address. But requiring people to register in general is a step too far.
>> And when those things come up, they can ask your address.
How would they do that if they don't have your address? For example: a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?
If you need to deal with taxes, you submit your address to the tax agency.
If you need to deal with license stuff, you deal with the equivalent of the DMV.
And so on.
There's no need to just file your address with the government 'in general'.
> a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?
Internet is kind of irrelevant. Most government agencies don't use the internet to contact people unless they specifically opt in and the agency offers that.
They would use your last known address, or wait for you to contact them.
I've never had to register my address anywhere unless I have a drivers license.
Registering the address will get you the tax number, which is necessary to be paid.
The health insurance (also mandatory when working) would need a registered address.
I did have a tax number, since I got paid and presumably paid taxes.
I never went anywhere just to register my address though. That sounds so insane to me.
Still a crappy system.
You broke the law if you were a resident of Germany and didn't register yourself.
You think Europe would have learned a thing or two from WW2 and what was going down on the continent. I guess some behaviors are just too culturally ingrained.
You mean, you have to be ready to be punished for breaqking shitty laws just to point to their shittiness.
Sure, but in my case nothing happened, so, meh?
Yes, but you don’t need a bill for that, you can just get it from the municipality where you are registered.
> A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license.
Anyone age 14 and up is required by law to be able to show an ID when asked. So yeah, everyone here has an ID.
> My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
The rules for children are different. Once you turn 18 you need to ID yourself to the bank. If you don’t do this your account will be blocked. You will be informed of this shortly before you turn 18.
> having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID
You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service. You can send/receive money and get a debit card. Anything else, credit cards, loans, etc. are of course not included.
And sure, if you’ve been convicted of fraud or anything like that, that’s an exception.
You can't "just" get it if you don't have a fixed address, or if the address isn't eligible for registration (the rules for that are rather strict).
Netherlands is one if the hardest countries if you end up in an "exceptional" situation; you can work around "proof of address" (not always, but frequently), but it's much harder to work around the municipal registration.
Yes, there are rules for exceptions (e.g. "briefadres") and there's stuff like https://www.basisbankrekening.nl – but in reality people are so strict with this that it might as well not exist for vast swaths of people.
If you've never been in an exceptional situation you think it's easy and works grand, and it does, right up to the point it doesn't, at which point you're pretty fucked. People are unaware because they've never experienced it, but it's really awful.
Last year it took me 5 months and a lot of proverbial "banging fist on the table" to get a bank account in the Netherlands. It took me about 2 weeks in Ireland. Just sayin'
- Few people are willing to rent to you if you don't have a Dutch bank account and current registration.
- You can't get registration without a place to rent that qualifies (and many places don't).
I was earning €90k/year at the time; it wasn't a money issue.
I don't know how it is in Sweden or in the Netherlands, but here in France, I needed a bill or some other "proof of address" to register to vote with the town hall. I had been living in the same apartment for years, and they never seemed to require any proof before sending me the papers asking for the local taxes.
Yeah, that's not how it works in all European countries. Which can get really "interesting" in some cases, believe me (I've lived through that).
I've also been requested proof of employment, which is also interesting when you're unemployed. In one of the countries, they said I can just give them proof of unemployment benefits... which I don't have, because I left my job willingly.
And then they told me: "well, in that case you can get proof of unemployment from the municipality". Except... that I'm not even living in your damn country and the municipality where I live doesn't even know whether I'm working or not (why would they?!).
But this does not even compare to all the problems I've had when I've not been living in the same place stably for an extended period of time. It has been an absolute hell in some cases, because institutions (governments, banks, lawyers, etc) simply do not account for this possibility. They all assume that you have a stable address of residence.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
> You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service.
I don't think that's how it works. The governments have created a legal requirement for banks to provide minimum banking services, yes. But banks still have to comply with many other very strict requirements and customers may not be able to fulfill them, which prevents them from opening bank accounts.
I haven't personally had this issue but I know someone who did in the US. No permanent address; they were doing a lot of traveling.
Nothing wrong/illegal about that. But, by the books, it means they can't get a driver's license and other important documents. So you basically have to lie. Either use a third-party digital nomad service (which I understand some states may flag) or find a trustworthy friend or relative to "live" with (who will forward important mail to you and vouch for you if needed--which is what they did). There are still potential issues with respect to things like jury duty but these can mostly work although they're almost certainly at least marginally fraudulent.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
Many banks (Santander, HSBC just two I checked) have entry points for people who are genuinely homeless. And accepted ID can include simple government things like council tax or a driver's license, but also just a letter from your employer or school. Again these are soft checks.
For immigrants or foreign workers a process of getting EU residence status may take months and sometimes require an EU bank account, so it may become an infinite loop. We have to take worst renting deals in order to get required papers, for example.
If you have a way to prove your ID(which basically everyone do in Norway) then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
After going through the process of moving to Norway, I can say that unfortunately things are not that straightforward for foreigners. Even after getting your work permit, getting a personnummer can take up to several months after moving, not to mention getting an appointment with UDI can also take up to several months (in the meantime you'll feel like a lesser member of society, basic things like getting a library card are not accessible without it). After all there's a reason why this kind of service exist https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mpr_sua-techfasttrack-oslo-ac...
> then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
This only works when you already have a BankID. It takes at least 1 month to open your first account. Granted after that, everything is smooth, but oh boy how much time does it take.
A bank checking your credit score just because you want to create an account would be a huge invasion of privacy.
A bank checking your credit score just because you want to create an account would be a huge invasion of privacy.
There is no reason for the bank to check your credit score if you're only using your own money.
However, if I'm not from Norway/Sweden/Denmark then I'm not in that system yet.
I came here to say something similar. We moved to the Netherlands in 2014 from the US and it was three or four months before our immigration stuff was far enough along that we could open a local bank account with an IBAN and get a chip and pin card (at the time, virtually no US banks would give you chip and pin cards). My partner couldn't even get paid during that time until she had a bank account. We lived off withdrawing cash from my US account at ATMs. That included paying our rent (we were lucky that our landlord, who lived in a different city, was OK with us just paying cash to their relative who lived nearby).
There's also money orders.
If you give me a $20 bill, I can immediately exchange it for a case of beer at the bodega with no extra steps. If you give me a money order for $20, I need to find someone who is willing and/or able to convert that money order into a $20 bill before I can buy my beer.
Privacy would be the biggest and most important reason and probably enough to end the conversation right here.
But we can also include
- ease of payment. Count out money and you're done.
- vendor gets their money immediately, no 5 day hold like there could be on a check or money transfer
-
No chance of making errors in the bank nr, you can pre-specify the required amount in the request. No chance of making an error counting out 3K or more in cash notes.
Within the NL banking/payment landscape I'd argue that large cash transactions are more bothersome for everyone involved. (well, unless involving a bank is bothersome to either of the parties, but if that is the case we're probably entering "dubious transaction" or "dubiously sourced money" territory..)
If the government wants to eliminate the requirement of accepting large amounts of cash, I can see that. If you're not equipped to handle being paid in a large cash sum, it can definitely be inconvenient. But making the exchange of large sums of cash between two consenting parties illegal is bold-faced tyranny.
As silly as it sounds, this system is not scalable.
I agree that in a grocery store, it is far easier to pay with a card.
I have only paid in-person using NFC for nearly 10 years in Norway. I understand that the situation is different other places, but I'm literally not sure what our physical currency looks like now.
However, I walked into a store in Spain yesterday that was cash only. Now I have cash in EUR that I not only overpaid insanely for because of the ATM , but I also can't use it in Norway. If cash was no longer an option then it would be much simpler and cheaper as my bank does the currency exchange for me.
Digital payments are probably better in every way when it's the norm, except for privacy, and that's a big one.
Centralized digital payments fail here as well.
Naturally the mobile phone network, GPRS/3G that POS devices relied on was overwhelmed. And maybe something else went wrong on the banks backend.
So international credit card transactions were hit or miss for half a day. I was happy I had got some local before the earthquake. So I was able to continue the rest of the day with no issues.
Please do not reply to this post saying that you are a "prepper".
All you’ve shown is you have a delayed reaction, and claim preparing for a disaster is a bad thing. I mean think about that for a second.
Ha, well you'll have a heart attack when you look at your visa statement and realized that visa can charge even worse rates for currency conversion than ATM's do.
Plus visa charges the vendor a fee( around 2ish%) that has to be born by the buyer and seller. Cash doesn't have this built in tax.
Now I'll admit I have no idea bout Norway, so maybe you have some special way to pay with zero transaction fees and have the cash show up instantly with no holds on the payment ever, if so, good for you guys.
I'm not sure I'd feel safe if anyone could pay an amount above € 3000 after stealing my watch / phone / card and putting them on a terminal.
As for the phone, you need to unlock the phone for larger purchases. The card requires a pin for larger purchases. The watch needs to be unlocked to after being removed from the arm.
So that is not something to be worried about.
In reality, there’s hardly any 3,000 euros+ transaction where a business or individual will accept cash. That’s too much money to have on hand when a bank transfer is much more comfortable…still happens rarely though so I think this law is overreaching.
Disclosure: I’m not Dutch nor European so my opinion hardly matters here.
The average person isn't affected by this type of government surveillance and potential overreach because the average person doesn't buy things that are priced at over 3,000 euros per transaction. They can easily hide all their daily transactions from the scrutiny of government and surveillance capitalism just fine.
This regulation only impacts the wealthiest people and/or the organized criminal.
I have had multiple cash transactions above $3,000 every year that I've done this. Not to avoid taxes, not to keep them off the books, but because one of the parties has either the unwillingness or inability to take electronic payments. Elderly people, those located in rural or otherwise isolated areas, those with a natural distrust of government for whatever reason, or those with a distrust of banks in general. These are all valid use cases.
This law would make it nearly impossible for me to do what I do (on the side).
I wouldn't say I routinely do large (>$3000) cash transactions, but I do them often enough that I guess I'd be a criminal in the Netherlands.
Hopefully not for too much longer:
It's incredible how lax the rules are for how verified the CC information needs to be for a transaction to clear. There was a HN article about it not that long ago, w.r.t. dealing with Stripe or one of the other big processors. Stuff like the CVV can be wrong, the issued name can vary by some heuristic, etc.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
With all due respect, the transactions above that rough amount is exactly those I would want the government to keep an eye on, while letting me buy stuff for a few hundreds freely and without having to report it.
There is pretty much no situation whatsoever when someone buys something for more than 3k€ where the absolute requirement to use cash is not linked to some shady reasons.
Why should that be limited?
It works just fine in most of europe since a very long time, and frankly people insisting to be paid in cash and then going out of their way to fully declare the taxes and source of the money is even weirded, why not take the easier shortcut.
Of course, maybe it's linked to how strange sending money seems to still be in some circumtances in the US ? Reading about Venmo and the likes is just surprising to me, a 10 minutes SEPA wire is free here, and as good as cash.
Meanwhile, if you have to do a wire transfer for a large sum of money, and the bank screws it up, they have around 30 minutes to recall it before the wire is permanently completed.
Easy as that, no need for checks or cash.
Even some people who historically took cash (such as household tradesmen) now often simply have the money transferred instantly on the doorstep, rather than have to carry cash around in their pockets all day. I imagine a similar story in much of the rest of Europe.
If the banks actually track it or not is another question. Every now and then a report comes out mentioning a banks failure to do so.
Logicians, please simplify the previous statement.
Compare: in the US, you can be detained for driving over the speed limit. You can also be detained for driving under the speed limit, if police believe either that your slow speed is dangerous, or that you are driving slowly to avoid being detained. In all but the most egregious cases of abuse, a driver will have little reason to complain that they shouldn't have been pulled over.
These are both dragnets.
It's also just shitty to mandate a middle-man for transactions.
I'd also rather pay the Macbook by card due to practicality, but I don't understand your second sentence. Why would you walk around with a Macbook worth 3k but not with 3k in cash? Nobody knows that you have 3k in cash with you, whereas everybody can see you walking out of the Apple Store with the Macbook.
I don’t do it often; last time was when I moved to the UK without a British bank account and did not want to pay any transfer fees, which are quite expensive for larger sums (I had to carry enough to live one month and pay a first month’s rent before getting my first pay check). Another one was when I had to buy a computer after having reach the 7-days ceiling in my debit card (now you can increase it on the bank’s app; it used to be more complicated).
The first time, it feels a little odd, but then you realize that nobody at the bank bats an eye at you withdrawing a few grand, and $3k in 100s is about the size of a phone in your pocket.
Since nobody carries cash, nobody thinks that other people are carrying cash, so it doesn't make you a target. And I'm not anymore likely to lose my wallet with $500 in cash in it than I am my $1000 phone.
Thugs will target older people who are more likely to carry cash, they do some stereotyping other of people who are still worth mugging.
Also, if they notice the wallet bulge in your back pocket, you’ve become a target.
And anything that doesn’t look like a wallet probably won’t trigger a response. You would be safer to just wad up money and shove it in your pocket than to carry it around in a wallet.
I've been on this site for a long time, and as far as I can recall this isn't accepted.
"It's for your own safety."
If it's a ride shared by several strangers, everyone can be handcuffed, too, so everyone keeps their hands to themselves for an added safety boost.
Banks fail, and no one should be forced to need one.
It will make the rest of your life a lot easier.
Sorry had to fix that.
>what are some good reasons to allow
Me:
>what are some good reasons to ban
Why should I not be able to spend my own money how I feel? It's mine.
Any tax on the transaction belongs to the government, though.
I could or could not disclose that payment to my government depending on the laws and if there are fiscal benefits, it is my choice. I should not be forced to use a middle man for those payments, even if this means i am open to be scammed or victim of fraud.
now, as other mentioned, what are some good reasons to FORCE ONLY electronic payments above 3000€ ?
Cash is, after all, the only instant and feeless transaction method. Why would I want to pay % fee or wait up to several days for a transaction like that?
Imagine I bought the car on Friday afternoon. The seller would get the money earliest on Monday. Why would the seller simply trust me? So how would I buy a car on a Friday afternoon otherwise?
Bank transfers in the EU are instant, and there are no fees for personal accounts.
> Imagine I bought the car on Friday afternoon. The seller would get the money earliest on Monday.
No, the seller would get the money before they could even blink.
I have accounts at 2 unrelated banks. I have my online banking apps set up that whenever I get a deposit over a certain amount I get a push notification. When I use my online banking app to transfer money from my account at bank A to my account at bank B, I get an alert from bank B’s app to inform me of the money appearing in my account before the app from bank A has even shown me the confirmation screen that the transfer request was received.
This is true for any two banks in a SEPA country.
EU is planning to make their support mandatory but IIRC this only be the case during “business hours”.
> So how would I buy a car on a Friday afternoon otherwise?
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa...
You must accept plenty of agreements between bank and you, and there are only so many banks, so it's very possible for some people to find bank terms to be unacceptable for them.
Right now those people have cash as an alternative. Making it illegal removes some freedom from those people.
edit: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/rettskilder/type/uttalelser/p...
If a million dollars in $100 fits in a briefcase, Then it's a suitcase or more for $20 etc. And then banking that money becomes tedious as well.
Anyway, without enforcement it's really just tokenism.
Unless you have unclean cash to clean ofc
I would also argue that the only people making cash transactions that large are probably way wealthier than the average person and, again, are looking to launder their money.
Think about it seriously: in what scenario would you choose to use physical cash to make a transaction amounting in the thousands of dollars?
That's so insanely risky. You'd be a walking target. You could lose the money, someone could steal the money, it could be physically damaged.
It even puts you at risk during the transaction: why would the other party sell you the good when the money is right there ready to be robbed from you? There is no recourse because it's all under the table. I can't stop a check or have a paper trail to take to court if you just take my cash.
There is no situation I would be comfortable making a transaction with that much cash (unless I was in so insanely wealthy that this amount of money meant nothing to me).
That’s fine for you but why does that mean it should be illegal for everyone else?
So if a lot of bad people pay for things with big sums of cash, then why would you oppose this limit, unless you're a bad person. Meh.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/08/whatsapp-...