A consumer group is urgently calling on the federal government to follow other jurisdictions in the U.S and Europe and bring in legislation to stem the slide toward a cashless society.
Only 10 per cent of transactions in Canada today are done using cash, according to Carlos Castiblanco, an economist with the group Option Consommateurs.
“There is a need to protect cash right now before more merchants start refusing [it],” Castiblanco recently told CBC Radio’s Ontario Today.
It’s critical to act now, he added, before retailers begin removing all the infrastructure required to store and maintain physical money.
The main thing that concerns me about a fully cashless society is that the means of buying and selling stuff shifts fully into the hands of the for profit, private company payment processors.
If cash is no longer an option, then ever increasing payment fees can become a growing profit center for those banks, credit card companies and payment processors as they gouge the public worse than they already are.
Which is why we need to nationalize banks. Why the fuck are they private institutions when you literally can’t get by without a bank account?
also need to keep cash around for poor people. when I was homeless 10 years ago if cash wasn’t a thing I would have been well and truly fucked.
You also need to further lower the barrier of entry for simply getting a bank account. Make it so, once again in Ontario at least, your OHIP card is a valid id to open an account. Because if you go cashless and you don’t have a bank account you’ll never get one. costs money to get a valid form of ID here to open one. Hell I know people who don’t even have bank accounts because they can’t afford it. They can’t afford the monthly fee. they either get paid in cash or have somenoe cash their paycheques for them.
isn’t that partially why those who dont want minimum fees look for a credit union that doenst charge minimum fees?
but then you have the hurdle of actually being able to join a credit union. I remember a couple years ago I was trying to help one of my clients get a credit union account (who was homeless but working) and he couldn’t get it. don’t remember the specific reason but I do know we went across the street and was able to open a scotiabank account.
It was Merdian bank so don’t know how good they are. I figuerd the credit union would be easier to work with in his case since like you said there’s no minimum fees, I was wrong.
The hurtles are generally:
Yup. Mastercard, Visa and American Express are about to get much worse on consumers and merchants.
And, y’know, you’ll never be able to buy anything illegal again, even if that’s just a book a la Fahrenheit 451.
Not necessarily true. The federal government can and should roll out their own instant payment mechanism under the supervision of the central bank or federal reserve. For reference: the FedNow initiative in the US, FPS in Hong Kong, and PIX in Brazil.
Interac is an aberration and it should be killed by a real public service.