Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook
Nickname:
Password:
Nickname:
Password:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
actually sweden is the example
frankly australian banks have very little clue about outflows and blindly allow transfers without real authorisation (cryptographic) they will allow a internet transfer without a key just a SMS and when SMS can be spoofed it allows all kind of proxies to be setup and real loss’s to the consumer
because while you can claim you didn’t make the transfer, the money is gone already. you may get it back, but it’ll take weeks.
also the reason why credit cards are better than debit in this regard. when there’s a fraudulent charge on your debit card, the money is already gone. if it’s to your credit card, it’s still the bank’s money, not yours.
Indeed. On the other hand “first declining since 1966” and “totally cashless” seem to be pretty far removed from each other…
Australia have always been a test ground for new technology. Our retail banking system is far ahead of the USA’s fragmented system and most aussies use NFC for retail transactions….
but as the parent says, cashless is a huge danger because you can suddenly become person non grata.
It’s already happened in canada, where bank accounts were closed for merely donating to the trucker protest.
Don’t think for one second a private bank will either de customer you or a govt command a bank to freeze your account, then you’re back to barter!
It also happened recently to Nigel Farage, leading to quite the unlucky scandal and the resignation of the NatWest CEO. Tommy Robinson faced similar issues. If they can do this to public figures, imagine what they can do to private individuals with few resources?
A cashless society is something dictators of the past could only dream of.
So if all the banks close your accounts because you made a social media post that offended whatever the latest pet absurdity they are supporting, or you support a political party they don’t like, what will you do?
After all private institutions have no obligation to you.
So if all the banks close your accounts because you made a social media post that offended whatever the latest pet absurdity they are supporting, or you support a political party they donâ(TM)t like, what will you do?
After all private institutions have no obligation to you.
Cannot happen. The person you replied to has been watching a movie since the day they were born, and the central character in that movie has been them. Much of that movie involved supporting characters telling the main character h
> So if all the banks close your accounts because you made a social media post that offended whatever the latest pet absurdity they are supporting, or you support a political party they donâ(TM)t like, what will you do? After all private institutions have no obligation to you.
Thatâ(TM)s the point. Banking is both essential and has high barriers to entry. It would be reasonable to legally enforce neutrality. Providing banking services doesnâ(TM)t require expression on the part of the bank n
This is like the prepper hoping that an asteroid or zombie apocalypse starts just to validate their opinion and tell others I told you so.
There’s nothing terrible about a society being cashless. Australia is far behind many other countries in this regard. There are many people in the world who simply do not handle cash anymore and have shown to be perfectly functional. I myself haven’t touched cash other than on holidays or on business trips in other countries for about 3 years now.
For a society in time of war being targeted by foreign actors willing to hack and destroy online services (incuding banking), power stations and communications satellites, being cashless can get pretty confusing pretty quickly.

And Commonwealth English is not US English.
Or as it’s known everywhere: Simplified English.
Minimum card spend was a thing. You tended to see it in smaller business rather than larger chains. It’s pretty much disappeared completely since Covid.

He can’t even spell cheque correctly.
Check is a legitimately recognised spelling. While being predominantly American English it is starting to be seen more and more in British circles simply because Americans are about the only people still using the thing.
No it’s not. It’s just another example of how many people can’t spell. e.g. using “loose” for “lose”, “moran” for “moron” etc. etc.
“Check” and “cheque” are two totally different words, with two totally different meanings.
my favorite is watching this british youtuber living in america, talking about “why do americans spell X word as X’ ” and in ALL cases, it’s the americans using the original spelling of the word and the “britsh english” was the one that changed the spelling over time.
Yep. American English was occasionally simplified, but in more cases British English was deliberately made more poncy so as to reflect how superior the British thought they were to all other peoples… Somehow, even after photography became widespread and they could find out they were the most inbred people on the planet.
These weren’t bank fees, but a state-level tax. It varied by state/territory, so it’s possible you were in a state without one. I was in the ACT in the late 90’s and I remember it well. My bank set me up with a seperate cheque and ‘savings’ account and when I wanted to write a cheque I moved money across from the savings account to minimise exposure to the tax.
I don’t know that it has a serious impact on the decline in cheque usage though – New Zealand had a similar decline, but no similar tax (there was a 5c stamp duty on each cheque at one point, but it wasn’t the pain point that the Australian definitely-not-a-tax was.)
I’ve found the Wikipedia article on it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_account_debits_tax [wikipedia.org].
By the late 90s I for one paid most bills by direct debit. All the major utilities in Australia were able to run the bank tapes needed to enable this.
A few other recurring payments were taken care of by automatic payment (fill in a form at the bank, pay a small setup fee and the money comes out your account each fortnight or month)
Cheques were for one-offs and irregular bills – like say from a plumber or builder.
I still use the cheque account I was issued upon enrolment at uni in 1991. No fees, so I’ve just kept it. I actually deposited a cheque into it last week, certainly the first time this century I’ve deposited a cheque. It was surreal. I used the bank app on my phone to take a photo of it, the app OCR’d the cheque, and it was deposited. Waaay simpler than the last time I deposited a cheque. I had to retain the actual paper cheque for 10 days, just in case, but the actual depositing was incredibly easy.
Lord, that’s just painful. I can live with the loss of “u”s in valour and colour. But please, for God’s sake, and the sake of readability, get the rest of the language right.
A check is a type of valve, or a mark you put beside a right answer or in a box on a form.
A cheque is a financial instrument for the transfer of money.
I thought it was still spelled “cheque” in the U.S. Huh.

I would do my best…to try to accommodate the primary users of the forum
Yes? Great! Please do that here, and there will be no controversy. 🙂

I am speaking my language – US English
You weren’t speaking your language at all. You were writing it. And it is still a cheque everywhere in the English speaking world. Even the USA.

since nobody is truly confused
You don’t get to say that “nobody is confused”. You don’t and can’t know that. I personally find it jarring enough that I have to re-read in order to be sure of the context.
Also, nbdy s trly cnfsd whn I typ ths bt its nt esy 2 reed… is it?

it is pedantry…
Perhaps. But if so, then the response is out of prop
All I see is words whose meaning is perfectly obvious in context.
” I can live with the loss of “u”s in valour and colour”
color is OK, after all it is a reserved word in some computer languages. But honour has a u (without it its a women’s name) but Labour must have a u and the Australian political party doesn’t.
( I have never been to Australia, but I was born across the ditch:.)
“A check is a type of valve, or a mark you put beside a right answer or in a box on a form.”
The mark you put for a right answer is a tick
But you are right about the thing you put in an envelope t
They work in natural disasters and save money where businesses charge extra for credit card purchases.
I have two cards, checking and carry about a grand in cash (its not some weird flex, no one else sees it) for cash buys of tools and equipment from private sellers.
These weird new types of states that are just as controlling as say Iran or Saudi Arabia in some respects, but give you many of your rights, and the ones you don’t have are “for your protection” – it’s just so weird and creepy and 1984esque.
In Soviet Australia all the banks are run by the government of course.
We have no government run bank, other than the reserve bank.
And yeah, this move to cashless is coming strictly from consumers. Frankly its easier, and safer, to just carry my phone around .
I stopped using cash during the pandemic, and the habit just stuck

Soooo let me get this right, people choosing not to use cash makes them a nanny state?
You didn’t get it right.
Choosing to not use cash is just choosing to not use cash.
The government forcing you to not use cash, for the stated purpose of looking at all of your transactions to make sure they are not for “criminal purposes”, is a nanny state.
The term “nanny” is given to a person that looks after a small child not able to take care of themselves, usually when the parents have another task to do where they can’t look after the child.
Choice isn’t involved, the child has no say, just like the gove

Soooo let me get this right, people choosing not to use cash makes them a nanny state?
No. Australia being a nanny state makes it a nanny state. You know, the kind of state that has laws on the book saying parents can be arrested if their 11 year old walks to school by themselves, and that every house regardless of who owns it or is in it needs a pool fence with a child proof gate.
When you make it not a right you are also forcing the use of electronic payment methods on people. That’s why you have to preserve not just even but ESPECIALLY unpopular rights.
I’m Australian.
What a mangled point you’re trying to make.
I only use cash on rare occasions such as tipping hotel staff or stuff like that. Most days I have zero cash in my wallet so don’t try to rob me.
Less cash benefits Banks and the larger retailers. So they are punishing customers by increasing fees for using cards. It’s gotten to the point where I am tempted to go back to cash.
Less cash isn’t much of a benefit. No-cash is a *huge* benefit. Much harder for theft (both internal and external), no need to balance the till, no need to keep a float, no need to actually go to the bank.
You know, you can close up shop at 5 and actually leave at 5 rather than running errands solely required because you need to have cash.
Why aren’t the fees regulated? In the EU there was a crackdown on fees. Not just for banking and card transactions, but for things like international roaming costs that in reality cost the telecom companies close to nothing.
> Every year since ï1966 when the country transitioned from pounds and shillings to decimal currency, the total value and number of notes in circulation increased.
> That all came crashing to a halt in the 2022-23 financial year, with a sharp decrease in $50 notes especially.
So every year for 57 years it went up, and this year it went down, and that is then immediately extrapolated to “they’re going cashless, mark my words!”.
In NZ at least (and I would have assumed Australia to be the same) ATMs now dispense $20s and $50s, whereas they used to only dispense $20s, so I would assume that, combined with inflation, has made $50s much more common. In other words, the $50 note is the new $20 and should be much more common as a result.
The ATMs I use in Germany, usually have 5, 10, 20 and 50 EUR notes. In the more well-off towns they have 10, 20, 50 and 100 instead.
If you want to hide your purchases from your bank record, buy a gift card and use that to pay.

Well the card record show you bought flowers
Why would the card record show that? It’s entirely optional for you to use the same cashless system as someone you’re hiding something from. Get a second card and another account.
I imagine there will be an influx of people working for currency substitutes – not gold or silver – but beer, tobacco, and contraband. It will mostly be prepaid credit cards at the start until the feds put some sort of controls on those. If you want someone to build you a back deck with no receipts (i.e. under the table), you might have to supply him/her with something of value with which they can quietly raise rent and grocery money.

I imagine there will be an influx of people working for currency substitutes – not gold or silver – but beer, tobacco, and contraband. It will mostly be prepaid credit cards at the start until the feds put some sort of controls on those. If you want someone to build you a back deck with no receipts (i.e. under the table), you might have to supply him/her with something of value with which they can quietly raise rent and grocery money.
This is the primary motivation. The under-the-table economy is huge and government would love to be able to track every dollar that ever moves from person to person. Wanna pay the neighbor kid to mow your lawn or shovel your snow? Now he needs a bank account where he can start paying fees and maybe even taxes before finishing grade school. Might as well learn early about the all seeing eye of the state.
The media in Australia are owned by a very small group of vested interests who have resorted to fearbaiting the elderly to maintain a market share.
Whose portrait will they put on the notes and coins when they become a Republic?
wherein nobody will have any cash.
Seriously, here in Sydney the only reason people hold cash is to pay their dealer. Or so I’ve been told …
And the only time we ever see a cheque is when we get a refund from a company who hopes we won’t bother to cash it in. Actually, most young Australians probably don’t know what to do with a cheque.

Do Australian mobile banking applications allow you to deposit a check by photo?
Probably. I don’t know – I’ve only received a cheque once in the past 20 years.

yes, also through some ATM’s in Oz allow this and most banks have mobile cheque deposits through the app. really if it is in the US banks it has probably been in most of the rest of the civilized world for a lot longer, US cards and banking tends to trail the world not lead it.
Well, in Finland, we never had “mobile cheque deposits”, as cheques were phased out and replaced by payment terminals, online banking and direct deposits in 90s, way before mobile apps became a thing. Never wrote or received one myself, born in early 70s.
Here in Sydney we can pay for stuff by waving a Visa card or a phone over a reader. Way faster than counting out cash and waiting for change.
And we don’t actually “pay” for it until the end of the following month.
The main reason to use cash is buying/selling drugs and avoiding tax. Prostitution is legal in Sydney, so many sex workers take credit card – although suspicious partners and rampant tax avoidance mean that cash is usually the default.
Otherwise using cash makes about as much sense as using a camera
You really adore that boot on your neck, don’t you?
Government’s favorite way of banning things is by claiming “only criminals use them”.
Sad that you’re incapable of seeing the red flag.
And to be fair, if only criminals do use something then there’s a good justification for it to be banned. It doesn’t stop criminals, but it does make it harder. Not everyone in the world has an insane distrust for their government rooted in a history of telling the king to fuck off and then fighting a civil war. Many countries do not consider banning things a red flag.
You misunderstand. The Australian government isn’t banning anything. If anything, it’s encouraging the use of cash by taxing electronic transactions higher (at least, for those people who “forget” to report cash transactions to the tax office).
Only reason I carry cash is an emergency $50 I keep on my person (and not in my wallet).
Apart from that, I’d really rather not use cash. If I needed to be circumspect, though, the easy way to do so is to buy a Visa gift card and use that to buy dodgy shit. Also limits your exposure to card skimmers and such.
We’ll stay a low-cash country, not no-cash. It’s not just drugs (which are very popular here), pretty much any small business pays casual workers cash-in-hand. Not only would there be massive pushback from small business owners on a cash ban but it would be difficult to actually enforce. Even if you stop making new physical currency you still have to somehow collect the billions of dollars already in peoples possession.
If you think that will be easy, think again. Banks have been closing down branches for the last 20 years so it’s not like you can always just walk in somewhere with grannies big jar of pennies and expect someone to actually count it. There’s not even a guarantee that everyone has a bank account (we have rural, homeless, indigenous, elderly people who have never used banks – don’t trust them, don’t have an address, don’t have ID, no local bank, etc).
I’ve only been in one business that was card-only and it was an American donut franchise – so, nothing of value lost there.
Frankly, the death of cash has been greatly exaggerated.
I’m sure the o

… hurt the nation’s criminals …
They mean, prevent consumption of illicit drugs.
The Australian government has a restricted cash policy towards known addicts. This is viewed with suspicion because street markets, some buses and most school activities are cash-only.
I think about 10 years ago, there was an Australian article about street buskers needing to carry an EFTPoS machine to receive their gratuities.
Shops, however, enjoy not having to carry cash, trust employees with it, then count it and bank it.
> meaning they claim to use cash for less than 20 per cent of all their in-person transactions.
Ok, they have a little way to go to catch up with the likes of Norway
> only 3 to 5% of all transactions are carried out using cash.
https://monevium.com/blog/top-5-european-countries-with-cashless-societies/ [slashdot.org]
and that data seems to be from 2019 (pre-pandemic). I suspect it is even less cash transations now.
I think it was Mondex that tried a cashless system in Swindon, UK, whereby everyone had a digital card on which you could deposit cash. You could then treat it like cash, transferring to other people’s cards, etc, all without any central bank involvement. A system like that could possibly be made to work today.
However, that’s not the approach being followed by most attempts at going cashless, which tie people to the grid (bitcoin) or to a bank (debit card, credit card).
Sweeden has been mostly cashless for a very long time. Most banks do not have nor do they accept or handle cash, most stores do no accept cash. The same trend is following in Denmark and Finland. Canada is also extremely cashless, with cash expected to make up 3% of transactions by 2025.
TL;DR, I don’t know why this story is highlighting Australia as a leader here. They are catching up.
In my opinion, one of the fulcrums for moving all cashless is having a fictionles, fairly private, and 100% fee-free way to
*you don’t immediately pay a direct fee

firstly no you don’t pay a fee everytime you use a cashless system, sometimes you do but most major department stores, supermarkets etc do not charge a fee.
The stores pay the fee. It is hidden in the cost of whatever you are buying.
There may be more comments in this discussion. Without JavaScript enabled, you might want to turn on Classic Discussion System in your preferences instead.
Superconductor Breakthrough Claims Traced to a Basement Lab in Seoul
US Scientists Repeat Fusion Power Breakthrough For a Second Time
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.

source