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Comment by moooo99 | Hacker News Reader

> I’m not down to have rent seeking companies taking a slice of my hard earned money just so I don’t have to manage a few pieces of paper.

You’re pretending as if there weren’t any costs associated with handling cash. There’s almost always a handling fee if you want to put the cash into an account, which you will need to do if you want to pay people that are somewhere else than you are. If you have larger quantities of cash, you’ll also have to pay for safe transportation of the funds. If you make an honest comparison

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I’m not. Visa and Mastercard collected $138 billion in service fees in 2021. They are among the most profitable companies in the world. You’re pretending that cash handling is a binary. You need a blend. For example, after extensive testing we are not going to send wire transfers exclusively in gold bricks. Though the loss weighs heavy on me.

But you should be very careful in eliminating cash.

I assume cash handling fees are made up by banks who want more transaction fees. That’s not a real thing in my experience. I many times have gotten a discount for cash. I have not shopped a few places because they don’t accept cash. But I have yet to be charged a cash fee by any of the banks I use.

And they have insane surveillance data on their customers from doing so. Data that is used for all kinds of unintended purposes.

Cash is also one of the last strongholds left to maintain anonymity and keep purchasing information truly private without handing heaps of data to the corporations that make a buck off your receipts—or worse, to hackers, in the case of a data breach.

To say nothing of the unbanked… which is a massive issue.

If that’s the future you want, we don’t see eye-to-eye. You are giving up a LOT more than you realize.

>Cash handling fees are made up by banks who want more transaction fees. That’s not a real thing. I have yet to be charged a cash fee by any of the banks I use.

That's because you presumably have a consumer account. If you had a business account and were depositing thousands in 20 bills they're probably going to charge you fees.

Remember when banks made their money by taking in as many deposits as possible, and then lending that money out?

The fact that you immediately assume that something doesn't exist because you don't encounter it is insanely presumptuous of you.

The entire reason why small businesses moved away from cash is because its cheaper even taking into account fees. Food trucks, popups, small merchant kiosks. Not needing to take cash means far less overhead.

You're more than welcome to argue the benefits of cash transactions and in most cases I would agree. But you should not miss the truth of the situation.

And danger to employees! My partner used to work as a waitress, and was always very nervous when she had to go home with a days revenue when she was the last to leave.

Electronic payments are much safer, no physical cash someone can steal.

No, it's not the entire reason. If a store doesn't accept customers' preferred payment methods some of them will switch to competing retailers who do.

Here, in France, small businesses are delighted when I pay in cash

From what they tell me, that's because: - they get 100% of the money (no tax) - it grants them the right to cheat with tax declaration (which is always good) - it can be quicker and easier than credit card (I'm think of those guys who sells stuff for 5€, for instance)

I believe medium/large businesses loves credit cards, because the people doing the payment are low-waged, untrusted people, who cannot do maths etc (or whatever the reasons managements got in their head) But small businesses ? When you give money to the owner of said business ? They have credit cards because the consumers use them, but they hate them

> There’s almost always a handling fee

Citation needed. I've been depositing cash for years, with multiple banks, and nobody has ever charged a "handling fee".

> safe transportation of the funds

Yes, a lot of people have this irrational reaction to carrying large amounts of cash, as if your unremarkable Toyota miraculously sports a giant "BRINKS" logo every time you carry cash, attracting the attention of would-be criminals everywhere. I assume you believe that thieves and pickpockets are regularly carrying millimeter-wave scanners to see what's in your pockets, briefcases, backpacks, etc?

>Citation needed. I've been depositing cash for years, with multiple banks, and nobody has ever charged a "handling fee".

It's a fee associated with business accounts.

>https://www.bankofamerica.com/smallbusiness/deposits/resourc...

>Cash Deposit Processing No fee for first $7,500 in cash deposited per statement cycle at an ATM or Financial Center; then $0.30 per $100 deposited thereafter

0.3% vs. 3-4%

>0.3% vs. 3-4%

No, the total costs of handling cash currency & coins for large businesses will still add up to 3% or more which is in the range of the fees of credit-cards processing. Costs of accepting cash also includes:

- paying for armored trucks and security guards to transport bags of cash to the bank

- percentage of cash lost to crime such as

--- employees/cashiers theft/skimming by handling cash,

--- robberies,

--- counterfeit bills

https://www.google.com/search?q=retailer+total+costs+of+hand...

For a business, a true arbitrage of not paying 3% credit-card fees would be convincing customers to pay by check or electronic ACH bank account withdrawal. Those payment methods avoid the costs of managing loose cash and also avoid the fees from the credit-card processors. But they also have the same privacy concerns as CCs if customers care about that aspect.

Time spend managing the tills that you do not either have too much money at one time or have enough money always to give change... Oh and at the end of shift counting the money...

Like today I returned some deposit bottles and they had run out of 20€ bills... Which should be the most common ones. Going on trip so I preferred 10€ bills, but still...

Square will do you 1.75%, no contract, no fees and now you don't even need a physical reader as you can do contactless payment on your phone. You can get it lower with other providers if you negotiate right.

Nobody is paying 4% for any cardholder-present transactions.

>Square will do you 1.75%, no contract, no fees

Where? A quick search on their website shows 2.6%: https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing#rates

Everywhere, apparently, other than the US. You should fix your banking system.

someone has to pay for our big rewards program!!! :)

often as high as 2-2.5%

In Canada, from a 2009 article, https://www.cbc.ca/news/card-costs-who-pays-what-to-whom-1.8...:

====

How we pay

- Credit cards account for 31 per cent of transactions.

- Cash accounts for 29 per cent of transactions.

- Debit cards account for 26 per cent of transactions.

So what does it cost to process a transaction? The Bank of Canada survey looked at the estimated cost of processing a $36.50 transaction, which was the median cash transaction in its survey. Costs broke down like this:

Debit card: 19 cents.

Cash: 25 cents.

Credit card: 82 cents.

The study notes that the overall cost of electronic transactions falls as the volume increases, which the authors suggest, may encourage greater use of electronic payments.

====

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