Digital cash needs to be implemented by the government with zero transaction fees.
This needs to be something run by the government, in the same way the government runs printing physical cash.
This has nothing whosoever to do with MC/Visa/etc.
Does this enable completely anonymous payments, or is this another step towards more surveillance?
Surveillance most definitely will be a feature. We are talking about the UK government here.
Might be MC, might be a bank, might be a startup backed by investors.
It doesn't really matter at all. But the point is that it doesn't matter if existing card providers like it or not.
Mind you, I am not sure I am right and you're wrong. I am just pointing some concerns I have. And on the other side, your proposal makes sense also in the point that the government always financed the cost of the whole coins and banknotes stuff from the general budget.
But who are we fooling here? The lobbying power from the payments industry is mind-boggling, maybe bigger than the one from the Defense Industry. They would never allow a government payments program that eliminated their role as middleman.
You don't get charged $0.05 per paper bill by the government every time you go to the ATM. Similarly, you don't get charged by the fire department if it puts out a blaze in your home. So:
> Wouldn't it be better to have this program directly funded by its users? wouldn't it be more transparent?
Absolutely not. This goes against the entire ethos of government, which is that we collectively pay taxes, progressively, for the services that benefit society as a whole.
And if supplying and managing cash isn't a core government service, then I don't know what is. Even the most extreme libertarians and anarchists are going to agree on that one.