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Comment by caeril | Hacker News Reader

> 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?

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>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...:

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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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