At one point abolishing paper cash is even remotely plausible? maybe in 100 years? So far cash rules majority of the world and I don't see it going away any time soon.
Almost nobody pays for anything with cash in the UK anymore.
I think this is an illusion.
Sure, if you're going into almost any shop it will accept other payment methods and most people will use them, particularly at the moment. Similarly, ordering anything online isn't likely to be cash-on-delivery.
However, there are still reasons people might need or prefer to pay or be paid in cash, only one of which is "I'm a dodgy tradesman evading tax". For example, we've used a few local services for things like cleaning or gardening. They often like to be paid in cash, at least for the first visit or two, so everyone immediately knows it's all above board. This is common IME even if they might be happy to be paid (or even prefer to be paid) electronically once they get to know you.
Is the use of cash declining here? Certainly. Is it negligible? Not even close. Is it still useful or even essential? Sometimes, yes.
Paying people in cash seems like the exact opposite of an indicator of everything being above board.
It's also a traditional sign of honesty, and a convenient way for someone who has provided very good service to be tipped without making a big deal of it ("Keep the change"), and both of those things can be important in these kinds of situations.
Well I accept your experience, but in my experience asking for cash is a traditional sign of dishonesty and tax evasion. Why do you think they always offer a hushed discount for cash?
A professional tradesman invoices after and then accepts a bank transfer. Asking for a wad of banknotes is grubby.
FWIW, I'm not sure I've ever actually encountered that in my entire life. It seems like one of those folk tales governments tell when they want to get more money out of a group who are an easy target. After all, can you prove you only charged that nice couple what you said on your accounts for fitting out their new bathroom, Mr Plumber?
A professional tradesman invoices after and then accepts a bank transfer.
Sure, and when we've had tradesmen in that's almost always what we've done too.
But again, in my entire life, I don't think I've ever received a paper invoice from a cleaner, or a gardener, or a neighbour's teenager who was childminding, or the friendly retiree around the corner who is an ace at fixing bikes. Not unless they were working through an agency and it was the agency handling the billing, anyway. Not everything is big enough and formal enough to need invoicing and professional payment tools. Normal people still pay for plenty of stuff with cash around here. Just not usually in shops (online or bricks 'n' mortar) or for big things.
My favourite cheese shop used to only accept cash, but the owner retired. Beyond that, the only thing I need cash for is to give to homeless people. I think they're the main group losing out due to the switch to electronic payment; the can't afford the equipment for it.
Granted, I haven't been there in six months because of the virus, but I watch current British television every couple of days, and I still see people using cash.
>> Almost nobody pays for anything with cash in the UK anymore
Payment systems should be nationalised and run by a country's central bank. It's a very boring infrastructure equivalent to roads. There shouldn't be a private company taxing every single transaction someone makes. Do that and the small stores can drop the fees.
Sweden has a pilot project for a digtal currency: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/20/906146/sweden-ri... , I wonder how it's going.
I really don't think that's true; there are plenty of merchants who do still charge different prices based on payment method. But there are also many who voluntarily don't, because the actual cost is negligible and better than the alternatives. Regular bank transfers of various kinds between consumers, including iDeal internet payments, as far as I can tell, have no fees at all. Cash withdrawals across different currencies may incur fees, but I've never seen fees in regular Euro cash withdrawals.
Nobody here is charging 2-3% except when credit cards are involved.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/pri...
> Traders in the EU are not allowed to charge you extra for using your credit or debit card.
Regarding this:
> Nobody here is charging 2-3% except when credit cards are involved.
The service provider that provides the payment terminals merchants use will be charging the merchants between 1-2%, often with a per transaction fee on top of that. I’m not 100% sure how service providers in the EU bundle things, but intercharge fees are usually charged on top of that again. Even though the EU caps interchange fees, merchants will very easily be incurring above 2% in fees even for non-credit card transactions. The EU’s cap on interchange fees for card not present transactions is barely below standard market rates, so EU merchants will be paying about the same as everybody else for those.
“Earlier this year, Deputy Governor Tim Lane spoke about the circumstances when it might make sense for the Bank of Canada to issue our own digital currency. This includes a situation in which most Canadians stopped using bank notes. We don’t believe that a digital currency is required at this time. But we are moving forward with contingency planning so that if we ever judged that we should issue a digital currency, we would be ready.” (https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2020/06/opening-statement-160620...)
This is Finland, YMMV.
This part of the contract is not followed in SEA countries. If you want to pay with something that carries a fee, you are going to pay the fee on top of the price. Logically, most people will choose to pay cash then.
The second reason is taxes. Most small vendors do not bother with taxing their incomes; they are too poor for that anyway, every coin helps. With electronic ledgers documenting all the transactions, that would be much more difficult. The local IRSes do not bother with chasing these people, they know that the price would be higher than revenue; so they check only businesses with significant enough turnover.
In the US, credit card surcharges have been legal for many years:
Of course that only works if electronic payment is cheap. This is not the case with US credit card companies.
I think it's basically the Uber model of spending VC money to subsidize customer purchases to get that market share...