Cash-free Scandinavia?
 

<i>Scandinavia has long been the most cashless place on the planet. Now Denmark is considering whether to go a step further and allow retailers to ban cash altogether.

The Danish Chamber of Commerce is recommending that shops and services be given the option of going completely cash-free. The proposal needs to be approved by parliament but if it gets the green light, retailers could begin rejecting cash from January 2016.</i>

Early days yet, but a sign of the times to come?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ash-free-shops

Interesting that one should be given the option, as if it is not a choice that can be made presently. There are establishments in Amsterdam that do not accept cash.

I think it means by the time tourists leave Scandinavia, they are cash-free.

And it wasn't long ago that we paid in salt!!!
My family uses little cash here in Australia- credit cards, EFTPOS (electronic transfers from bank to supplier) , pay wave ( where you just wave your card over the suppliers machine ) , never cheques - a new world and Scandinavia is looking at the next step.

Even in the USA I barely use cash any more. Just as I rarely write a check. I used to pay cash for anything under $10, but not anymore, not even for a cup of coffee. Since I get miles on my CC I am happy to use it all the time. However, I do recognize that this means that my CC company knows what I am buying, I am less happy with the idea of using my phone and letting Google or Apple know. No doubt that's irrational...

I would have thought that was up to the retailer to begin with, I'm surprised there is a law there that you must accept cash (now). For example, taking credit cards is voluntary, no establishment has to do that.

<i>a new world and Scandinavia is looking at the next step.</i>

How is it a next step from what you are currently doing?

NZ it is getting tough to use cash

Just invest in the micro-transaction companies

New meaning of the phrase to "cash out" I guess.

Good. This will make life harder for the money launderers, drug dealers and tax evaders. Right now we use very little cash, few checks, and CCs a lot for the reason Thursday listed.

Very interesting.
I hate to sound paranoid but of course (as Thursday noted) while all this is sold as more convenient and safer it's really all about big data and being able to predict your spending patterns to sell you mores stuff!

I must admit to being astonished at the number of self service tills here in the UK. Everyone just lines up to put people out of a job, I was just in Boots and nobody went to the traditional till even though there was someone there to take them.

Michael - it is one step further because at the moment the establishments in Australia don't ban cash as is suggested might happen in Scandinavia.

I guess Denmark has eliminated all the marginal people – it was a few years ago, but I did see skid row denizens in Copenhagen – who do not have bank accounts and plastic.

Just heard that in Spain the Podemos political party (election coming up) is calling for this there,too.

In the US there is a law that legal currency (except pennies) can be used to pay for anything. And there are still a lot of low income people who pay for most things with cash - since banks have made it very expensive for people to have checking accounts/debit cards unless they can keep a minimum deposit (may be as much as $3000 in the account). Then they are charged to buy checks, sometimes a fee for each check and sometimes a fee for using any ATM not at their own bank.

There are really 2 levels - we only write 2 checks per month ( bills that will not take electric payment) and pay for anything more than about $10 with a debit card. But our bank gives us all this free since we have a couple of CDs there. I think the limit for free banking is a minimum of $10K deposit.

I think Scandinavia has very few people too poor to afford bank services.

<i>I think Scandinavia has very few people too poor to afford bank services.</i>

Google "homelessness in Scandinavia" for a different perspective.

I find the cashless part of Sweden a bit annoying. My bank doesn't even have cash on hand! They never have in my over seven years of living here. I have to go to the local foreign exchange place for depositing cash etc. Too risky with cash on hand I guess. People here use SWISH for personal transactions and small businesses use iZettle connected to a smartphone. I use my card everywhere. My paperboy still appreciates cash for his delivery service.

Massive fogeyism on my part, but I can only agree with welltraveledbrit on both her/his points.

It is not enough that our banks charge high fees to all but the well-to do, but to sell their data on top of that is OTT. We raise a stink about NSA but lick the hand of Bank of America.

As to self-check out, it is another fraud visited on the customer which has the effect of hurting low paid employees without benefiting the customer at all.

Here's how Swish works. Like the article reads, it's an app developed by Sweden's largest banks and is a safe way for people to instantly transfer money to one another.

http://www.thelocal.se/20121219/45172

"self-check out...is another fraud visited on the customer which has the effect of hurting low paid employees without benefiting the customer at all"

If that were true, customers wouldn't use it.

In reality, though, where it's an option - especially in stores like Boots, WH Smith and most M&S Food Only, where purchases fit into a small basket - customers visibly prefer it by an overwhelming majority. In big supermarkets, it's the option customers with small baskets prefer, leaving the manned checkouts for people with big trolleys, though that's partly because here few automated checkouts are designed to operate efficiently when faced with a trolleyload.

"Prefer" means just that: it's not shop-speak for "use because the company rigs the system to deprive users of any choice".

Customers who prefer self checkout do so because they're not kept waiting while some selfish git at the front of the queue fiddles in her (it's always her) handbag to start looking for the money, or while another selfish git (usually a he) chats to the checkout clerk about the weather, making sure everyone else misses their train.

It IS true that preference for automated checkouts is higher among the young. But among grown ups, it's visibly greater for those with other things to do.

It's also true that speed may be delusory: they're messier and slower to deal with than manned checkouts. But the customer feels in control, and isn't kept waiting while some poor employee wastes his or her (and the waiting customers') time going through pointless "customer service" procedures an idiot head office insists they comply with.

Interestingly, where speed really matters and other customers are in a hurry as well (like M&S at railway stations), most customers revert to manned checkouts.