French Town Tests Cashless Society 302
SamiousHaze writes to mention a Silicon.com article about an attempt in a French tourist town, Caen, to do away with cash in some locales. From the article: "Among [the locations in the trial] is an underground car park; the town hall; a bus stop which can transmit timetable information; a cinema poster which downloads video trailers to users' mobiles; a local supermarket, where people can pay for their groceries with a mobile phone, and a tourist information sign outside the historic Abbaye des Hommes. By touching the mobile against the 'Flytag' logo at each of these locations, users can pay for services or receive information straight to their phone."
You mean Caen, don't you? (Score:5, Informative)
Now, Caen is an interesting place. It's hardly a sleepy backwater - it's the busiest urban centre in the area. (And the traffic is awful). It's actually a very modern, thriving city that was rebuilt after being almost completely destroyed in the aftermath of the D-Day invasion in 1944 (even most of the pretty bits are actually restoration of the original buldings). I'd suggest that of all the places I've been to in France, Caen is certainly one of the top runners when it comes to modernity.
Also, the French are pretty keen on their plastic and were early adopters of payment cards and related technologies. So.. it'll be interesting to see how this experiment pans out because it's being carried out in more-or-less ideal conditions.
The UK did this about 10 years ago. (Score:2)
Re:The UK did this about 10 years ago. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem? Transaction fees mean it's pointless vendors accepting them for anything less than about £3.50. To make matters worse, not everywhere accepts Solo, which is an extremely popular variety of Maestro.
I would love to pay for things totally with plastic. Money goes into my bank account
Re:You mean Caen, don't you? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhat different I must say.
Re:Damn (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds more and more like a real-life version of PayPal, right? The scary part is when they arbitrarily (and unilaterally) decide to freeze your funds and make it next to impossible to get them back, even if you did nothing wrong.
Re:Damn (Score:2)
Isn't this something we presently today call at credit card??? Maybe more accurately, American Express? You use the card, in at EOM you pay it off in full.
Why the hell would I want to put this on my cell phone? I will much more easily lose that rather than my wallet with drivers license, credit cards and chicks phone numbers in it....and even occasionally cash.
This thin
There will always be some form of cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There will always be some form of cash (Score:2)
Re:There will always be some form of cash (Score:2)
How do you figure? They don't know what you do with the $$'s after you leave the ATM.
Just curious, how would they trace what you did with it legal or no?
Loss of privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
-matthew
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Informative)
Except for digicash [acm.org]. (Sadly, the company folded.. No government or corporation really stands to benefit from secure anonymous electronic cash, just private citizens/consumers.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Furthermore, if you will, your dollar bills have unique serial numbers attached to it, so whoever spends the dollar bill can be traced. If you want to be paranoid, you could use gold transactions. However, gold can be traced by its mineral content to the mine. Depending on your purpose, this may still be a problem.
Please pardon my stupidity... (Score:2, Insightful)
How, exactly, could this be accomplished? The teller doesn't keep a record of who got what bills, nor do the grocers, nor my barber, nor my bartenders.
Now, when they imbed RFID chips in all your money that would be easy to understand, but please enlighten me as to how serial numbers can be used to track you?
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2, Interesting)
The obvious reason is that the nickel impurity will contaminate Iraq's less well-known secondary export - tin. Each explosion spreads a little more nickel underground, reducing the shine of the e
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
For private payments I always use direct bank transfers; that way I have a record that I've already paid, and it's less effort since I can do it anywhere I have an Internet connection, while cash requires me to find a cash machine.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in a fairly small town and it takes about 10 seconds. Much faster then waiting for you to find those last 3 pennies.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Cash barely touches my hands anymore. I work four days out of the week. My paycheck is automagically deposited in my bank account every friday morning at about four AM. They even split it among my checking and savings nicely. I buy lunch with my plastic. We visit a variety of establishments in various forms of (dis)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Probably won't get the kind of deals we did way back when Manhattan was green and leafy, though.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
All the time. My minimum for credit card purchases is $20, and I never write checks unless I have to.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
All the time. My minimum for credit card purchases is $20, and I never write checks unless I have to.
A better question would be - you write cheques? You *have* cheques? What the hell for?
I remember my dad used to use cheques in the 80's, and he was considered old-fashioned.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Informative)
As to those people who don't use cash, I hate waiting behind you in the supermarket - especially the 3 items of less line. Can't even carry around £5. If they made it instantaneous, fine - but wasting any more time than is necessary really gets to me.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
I also am adverse to data mining. I hate push advertising and don't want to be bothered by people who think that I might purchase some crap I don't want based on something else I purchased.
All in all, using cash is about freedom and security to me, and I think it's worth the inconvenience.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
It's an erosion of liberty, plain and simple (Score:2)
There is a more sinister aspect to it, even if you are not a completely paranoid conspiracy theorist. Money is a piece of paper. Once upon a time it was a receipt for a certain quantity of a precious substance, like gold or silver, but chances are that's no longer the case where you live. But at least it's still a piece of paper. Peopl
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Fear of debt is the beginning of financial wisdom.
Or, as the bard said:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
-- Polonius to Laertes, Hamlet
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, Citibank has a card which gives 5% back on groceries, gas, and prescriptions, and 1% back on everything else, which comes out to a fair amount of money you get back. You don't get money back if you stick to cash or checks.
The key is to find a good credit card and use it responsibly.
Cashback cards are a prisoner's dilemma scenario. (Score:3, Insightful)
This money mostly comes from a cut of the merchant fees embedded in every purchase; credit card companies have basically forced retailers to pass the surcharges on to everybody and not just credit card users.
It's a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario. Everyone who uses credit cards d
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
All you would need is a mechanism for buying a disposable and untraceable temporary debit card. If your bank has a pile of $100 debit cards with no name associated, and they can hand you one without them swiping the number of which one was pulled out of the box, then you would have privacy in a cashless society. All that would be necessary would
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Huh? What? If you are that concerned about invasion of privacy, you could always barter.
People do it all the time. Swaping dvds, hard ward bits and peices, pokemon cards, and lord knows what else...
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
This report [dissentmagazine.org] has an excellent discussion of legal tax avoidance schemes by the rich and their impact on society.
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Re:Loss of privacy (Score:2)
Well, it certainly might help dry up the illegal immigrant problem we have in the US. Most of them get paid so little, and in cash under the table so that it is never taxed. Hell, I could take a lot less in pay if "I" didn't have to pay so much into FICA, Medicare, Federal and State taxes....
But, I'm not ready for such an intrusion into personal privacy...another database entry to track EVERYTHING I own.
Convenient and dangerous (Score:2, Interesting)
The State will be able to access these databases when it feels compelled to do so.
We were afraid of the State, 1984-like, maintaining huge databases, monitoring us all.
Instead, we have private companies maintaining these databases and the State accesses them when it needs to.
Either way, we have sacrificed true freedom for convenience - and we have done so without ANY meaningful public discourse upon th
Do you use a credit card/checking/Debit card? (Score:2)
If so then this is a hypocritcal statement. All three of those record the transactions that you preform with them.
Re:Convenient and dangerous (Score:2, Insightful)
"We - all of us, States, citizens, one and all - are not in control of the direction (I can't say decisions, because deliberate choice is not occuring) our society is taking."
I think a better analogy is Brave New World instead of 1984. We are creating a society where those in power are ensnaring us because of the innate human tendency to seek comfort and convenience.
We choose this state of affairs because it makes sense t
Re:Convenient and dangerous (Score:2)
It's not so much television as it is what's on television. i.e. soul sucking, brain rotting, lowest common denominator programming. It's only a matter of time before three syllable words become extinct on broadcasted media. But hey, that's evolution in action!
Re:Convenient and dangerous (Score:2)
But where is your ability to walk into a convenience store, plop down $100 in cash, and buy a temporary debit card with $100 which is not associated with your name? You can buy a phone card in this manner, but where can you buy an anonymous debit card?
And by the way. I, persona
Why Cellphone? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't want to get a 700+ phonebill each month for my expenses, I would never consider my cellphone Provider as my banking service. (because they en effect become your "banking service" if you only use your cellphone)
Proton [vub.ac.be] has been around for a decade in Belgium already with the same philosophy. It's very convenient, and you can almost use it everywhere and where I can't I use my Credit Card.
Re:Why Cellphone? (Score:2)
Steve
Re:Why Cellphone? (Score:2)
until I went to an "unlimited" plan where you pay a fixed 25EUR for "unlimited" communication within the same provider. You get about 30hours a week calltime and unlimited SMSes.
Since I've got my gf a subscription as well we're paying 700%-800% less each month.
But I still don't like the idea my cellphone provider just billing me for every transaction I do. I have the bank for that.
Re:Why Cellphone? (Score:2)
OA=Old Amount
NA=New Amount
Your savings, expressed as a percentage according to the commonly accepted definition is:
100 * (OA - NA) / OA
Assuming both amounts are positive, this percentage will be less than 100.
Re:Why Cellphone? (Score:2)
Steve
Re:Why Cellphone? (Score:2)
Steve
Cashless society is bad... (Score:2)
Re:Cashless society is bad... (Score:2)
One of my friends played a joke on this neighbor by triggering the car alarm with a couple of good kicks, the guy came running out naked, my friend slipped into the house and locked the front door, called the cops to report a naked man in the neighborhood, and then ran out the back door to hop over the fence. He wasn't busted but he wa
What about (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What about (Score:2)
Re:What about (Score:2)
Mod parent +1 insightful. Most of the other posters completely ignored the problem of strippers stealing your credit cards.
Already cashless societies (Score:2, Interesting)
At least 250 million people in US, Europe, Asia, use widely credit cards, and don't need to use cash.
Probably giving a tip with a mobile phone is not essentially different from giving a tip with a credit card either...
Re:Already cashless societies (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah but what happens in case of a blackout? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now suppose a natural disaster (earthquake, hurricane, who knows) took out the power lines. How will you buy the goods you need?
Re:Yeah but what happens in case of a blackout? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yeah but what happens in case of a blackout? (Score:2)
Meanwhile in the front cashier, "-- those will be one brick and a mod of 10 people. Thank you, and have a nice day".
Re:Yeah but what happens in case of a blackout? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in New York City during the blackout a few years ago. I had cash, on the other hand there wasn't much you could do with it.
Some restaurants were open, but most were closed (no workers, no lights, no ability to ring up registers).
The major stores (supermarkets and the like) were closed. No registers, no lights, no refridgeration.
Good luck finding a taxi
All in all, the only store I know of that was open and doing business was the local hardware store, and the only thing they were selling was batteries.
Face it, our society has already become so dependant on electricity that in a lot of cases, if the power is out, having money may not help, there might be bigger issues to worry about.
Re:Yeah but what happens in case of a blackout? (Score:2)
http://www.cwslagleantiques.com/images/longarms_c
It'll fail (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It'll fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably. I lived in Swindon (UK) when they were trialing it ~10 years ago and it was crap, though to be fair this was mainly down to the implementation. It took 20 seconds for it to take your money on the bus, as you can imagine with loads of passengers waiting it was a bit irritating.
I only ever used it in anger when Mackenzies Bar were offering 1/2 price drinks if you paid with Mondex...
Re:It'll fail (Score:2)
Hmm. Let me think? Charge me to spend my own money? I should coco.
Euros Merci (Score:4, Funny)
silly me (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:silly me (Score:2)
They will - The first time the power goes out for any decent span and suddenly an entire town realizes with horror that they have no tokens of their economy with which to trade.
I'll stop using cash the day people lose that glint in their eyes on seeing a Krugerrand. Until then, even if "they" force me to make all my on-the-books purchases electronically, they'll see nothing more detailed about my buying
Panhandling (Score:3, Insightful)
Overheard in the French town of Caen... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a 'good idea' but it's not (Score:3, Insightful)
That makes people EXTREMELY vulnerable to abuse by the system. (And if I hear "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you shouldn't be afraid" crap again, I'm going to throw a chair! "wrong" is always defined by whoever is in power and always a subjective notion. It's "wrong" to kill innocent people... unless your president orders it... hrm...)
The cashless system will work as nicely as expected, but the tests will not include the abuse that can and will happen.
You've never tried living with cash only (Score:2)
They tried that in Swindon, UK, years ago. (Score:2)
http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/e-telegraph.04jul95
So much for being egalitarian... (Score:2)
Cashless society for those that can afford cell phones!
Re:So much for being egalitarian... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up +1 irony (Score:2)
-nB
Need a state-backed card (Score:2)
In most countries, in fact in all that I can think of, the currency is controlled by the state. If I pay for something using a five pound note, I'm guaranteed that note is acceptable anywhere in the UK. Due to differing debit card systems, rates charged to retailers and just general availability, the same can
Been and done (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, this is the kind of electronic cash that should be the future. Total privacy, total anonymity, total freedom to use your own money as and how you like, absolute security against identity theft through reckless banks or merchants, hard limits to card misuse if stolen (and none of it attributable to you), relatively proof against electronic attacks such as keystroke monitors and viruses.
So why aren't these cards in widespread use? Merchants don't like extra card readers if no customers have the cards. Customers don't want cards they can't use. Neither like systems where most faults can be pinned on them and not the vendor. Banks hate systems that keep cash in the hands of consumers, as they make a lot of money speculating on the side (even in countries they're not strictly allowed to, they just do it overseas). Governments hate it because they can't track individuals and freezing accounts has less impact when you can carry a small fortune in your wallet.
The problem, then, is social and not technical. The French experiment uses inferior technology, for the purpose of satisfying some of the social requirements at the cost of placing all parties at greater risk.
(For some reason, humanity has all the attributes commonly associated with lemmings, when it comes to technology and risk. Given the choice of inferior products with greater risk, or superior products with little or no risk, societies always choose the inferior path.)
Re:Been and done (Score:3, Insightful)
While your observation seems to be generally true it completely ignores the reason for this behavior, which usually somes down to cost & convenience. Society is not choosing the riskiest and most inferior path because that is somehow a Good Thing, it "chooses" these paths because the riskier/inferior option is often cheaper and/or more convenient. That is the
Cashless society in the US too. (Score:2)
Cash...What's that? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a person that never has an empty savings account but regularly keeps my spending account low to avoid spending too much. See it's nice to have a reminder that you're blowing all your dough. I don't go to the ATM machine, so I never know what my balance is. Simply put, if there's no money in the account when I try to pay for something, I pick up my phone, push a few buttons, pay for what I need and I'm cautious for the rest of the month.
Since leaving the states, I no longer have a checkbook. All my bills (except my AMEX) is on autopay. I would put the AMEX that way too, but I'd like to see how much I'm spending on it.
The office I used to work in has a coke machine that was payable by telephone and I've even paid for train tickets using my phone as well.
As for cash, the only time I use it is when I'm paying the maid or paying the car wash that is run by people that would prefer to fly below the radar.
What I'm really trying to say is that Norway has been more or less a cashless society for several years now. Of course people still use cash, I know a lot of older people that still don't feel comfortable with the idea of everything being done with plastic, but it's an option which is nice to leave open to them. Cash has some benefits.
As for the experience in France, well, I see it as publicizing something that is not that interesting. It sounds as if they're just testing to see if telephone payment is an option. Personally I hate that idea since there are many times my telephone battery dies and I'd be stranded. Can you imagine not being able to pay for a taxi because you forgot to charge your battery?
As for America, well it's a long time before this modern world ever gets there. There's a tremendous amount of money made by the banks on bounced check fees and even worse, "Overdraw attempt fees" on using your check cards. I mean, come on, if the money isn't in the bank and the bank and the store knows it there on the spot, it's the store that should penalize you, not the bank. And having worked at a banking clearing house, I wrote a report generator for producing an account of three things on one report.
1) How much money was lost due to bounced checks
2) How much money was made from overdraw fees that were later corrected by the account holder
3) How much of a difference was there between the two.
The number was always positive and not by small margins. I ran this script many many many times because I simply couldn't believe the numbers coming out. In one case, I printing a 60 page report of this activity over a single week and tallied it manually to ensure that what I was calculating was in fact correct. It's unbelievable. The American banking system is dependant on these overdraw fees and will never separate with them. So as long as that's the case, removing classic style paper based money and checks is out of the question.
Just great... (Score:2)
But seriously, the major flaw in the scheme is that it assumes EVERYBODY is ready, willing, and able to buy into it. I for one don't wish to buy my 6 year old a mobile just so she can buy lunch at school. Sure, nobody can steal your lunch money without being traced... but they CAN steal your
I don't think they have a choice... (Score:2, Funny)
I would think with unemployment sky rocketing in France, that many French towns world be accustomed to a
cashless society.
NFC technology? (Score:2)
Re:NFC technology? (Score:2)
NFC also allows your cell phone to be a reader/writer device, though if you do not have the correct software, keys, and authorization in plac
I am already cashless! (Score:2)
More about electronic services (Score:2)
I've also seen how "encouraging" people to go cashless acts as a regressive tax o
Wow... (Score:2)
poulet ou oeuf (Score:2)
Like Poker Chips? (Score:2)
Re:Poker (Score:2)
I on the other hand...
Re:So what... (Score:2)
Re:So what... (Score:2)
Re:Taxation (Score:2)
Re:Doh, wrong "cashless" (Score:2)
Disclaimer: living in France and loving it...
Re:Wonder how this would be received in Germany (Score:2)
Re:Wonder how this would be received in Germany (Score:2)
ian
Re:Oops here goes a buck and another (Score:2)
We already have that [wikipedia.org]...