
Debate in Austria over enshrining use of cash in the constitution - rumcajz
https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/debate-rages-in-austria-over-enshrining-use-of-cash-in-the-constitution/
======
lioeters
I'm no Luddite by any means, but on this topic I side with those who consider
physical cash transaction a civil rights issue.

I suppose people in some EU countries, for example, which have mostly (?)
transitioned to a cashless society don't mind what a massive invasion of
privacy it is.

On the other hand, I do understand the advantages, the convenience, and
perhaps the inevitability of going cashless. Already most of our financial
transactions are being tracked and circulated ("peddled") in countless ways,
as are our online activity, phone conversations, real-time location.. At this
rate, future humans will look back at our concept of "privacy" and not
comprehend what it means.

~~~
caseysoftware
I don't think it's just a privacy issue. We've seen companies like Facebook,
Twitter, Chase, and even Mastercard cut off groups they consider undesirable.

For social media, it's irritating but the ability to stop you from collecting
or spending "your" money is terrifying because it could be applied by policy
or accident and the result is the same. No one should have that power.

~~~
roenxi
And what if a business gets cut off? Or the local internet/cell tower system
goes down for 24 hours? I have a local grocers near me where the card scanning
machine sometimes breaks. The centralised cashless system is great when it
works but it has a lot of complicated parts that require time and specialist
knowledge to fix.

It would be royally foolish to phase out cash for small transactions. The
option needs to be there.

~~~
fyfy18
Card payments, including contactless payments, can be done offline. However
the card has to be configured by the bank to allow this, which I guess some do
not.

~~~
PeterisP
It's a very specific notion of "done" \- you can record an offline
authorization event; so the _customer-visible_ part is done, but the actual
payment is not.

The merchant is not going to have any access to that money whatsoever
until/unless connectivity is restored. They can't pay their suppliers or
employees with that money while they're offline.

It's pretty much the digital equivalent of scribbling "Bob authorised to pay
me $12.34" on a notebook that you're going to bring to the bank afterwards.

~~~
fyfy18
Even if the transaction is online, you don't see the money in your bank
account straight away. It takes a few days for card payments to settle, and
usually the payment processor will have a predefined schedule as to when you
get paid. The context of my comment was on the payment terminal being offline
for a day or two.

------
seibelj
The question is whether someone has a legal right to conduct a monetary
transaction anonymously. I think if you get to the root of the issue, most
governments would prefer to track every transaction to ensure compliance with
tax, money laundering, [insert whatever regulation].

However I think the state already has an absurd amount of power and the
citizens need every tool possible to prevent governments from hurting them.
Anonymous transactions, such as those using cash but also using new
technologies like privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, are essential to keeping
the state from becoming a panopticon. You can already see the inevitable
outcome of all-powerful government with the ridiculous situation in Hong Kong
and the social credit system in China.

~~~
cstejerean
It’s not just anonymity. To get a credit/debit card you need to agree to some
TOS, probably binding arbitration, and are at the mercy of the bank deciding
whether or not they want to cancel your account.

That would be my problem with cashless, the idea that people could be cut off
entirely from the system and have no way to transact. Until the government /
central bank will issue everyone a irrevocable bank account with the right to
transact for free indefinitely getting rid of cash has bigger issues than just
privacy implications.

~~~
toomanybeersies
The solution to that particular problem would be to make it a legal right to
have a bank account. It doesn't have to have all the extras, just an account
that stores your money, and a card you can use for accessing your money.

~~~
dest
In France, if I am mot mistaken, you can legally have an account at the Banque
de France. People go there when they got kicked from regular banks, like after
having signed checks without having the money. Banque de France has become an
heuristic for landlords to reject candidates, so having a right for bank
account might not be enough.

~~~
a3_nm
You are thinking about the "droit au compte" (right to a bank account)
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_au_compte](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_au_compte)
but I think there may be some confusion. People exercise their "droit au
compte" by making a request the Banque de France, but they do not have an
account there: Banque de France designates some regular commercial bank which
is then legally obliged to provide them with an account. The French Wikipedia
page says that, in practice, this is usually La Banque postale: it's a pretty
normal bank that I don't think anyone discriminates against.

~~~
dest
Thanks for those precisions

------
beefield
The real benefit to get rid of cash would be to allow properly negative
interest rates.[1] At the same time I fully agree with the privacy worries on
going cashless.

So, what we really need are anonymous physical tokens whose value can change
over time. Easy solution is to just tale the current bills and say that after
one year, unless deposited to bank before that, are worth only 90% of the face
value. But with current technological capabilities, and if someone would
actually be interested, we should be able to come up with way better
solutions. Solutions that actually make it easier to pay with these anonymous
tokens than current cash.

[1] I know. This is far from intuitive to accept. It took me literally months
to accept that negative rates make _any_ sense after the first negative yields
popped up. To help you understand, let's say I have a fresh apple and you want
to have an apple today. In the textbook case I am willing to give it to you
today, if you give me tomorrow two apples, because I prefer also to have an
apple today compared to having ot tomorrow. This is fine, but what about me
having a big basket of apples about to rot, and willing to have also some
apples in the winter? There is no law of nature saying that there should be
someone willing to give me more apples next winter if I give them to him
today. In this case it is easy to see that a negative interest should apply to
lending of apples. And it should be economics 101 to understand that
artificially limiting prices will often cause welfare losses.

~~~
tom_mellior
Money is not apples, money in a bank account doesn't rot. Why make it rot
artificially? You don't explain.

~~~
beefield
That was to illustrate that it is possible that people prefer consumption in
the future. To your question why to make money rot has many answers.

But the easiest one is that if you belong to those who believe that central
banks actually have a useful role in managing the economy, then why restrict
artificially the main tools central banks have in their disposal, i.e.
interest rates?

~~~
tom_mellior
The difference between nonnegative and negative interest rates is "the central
bank is not allowed to steal from me" vs. "the central bank is allowed to
steal from me". That distinction is not an artificial restriction.

And yes, I understand that "the economy" might want me to spend money now on
crap that I would _not_ prefer to buy right now. I just don't agree that that
is a valid reason to legalize stealing from me.

~~~
beefield
I fully agree that it feels wrong and weird that you would give your money to
a bank and get less money back later. But if I stop and think a bit further,
that feeling starts to feel less and less justified. Here are a couple of
reasons:

1\. We talk about nominal values, not real purchase power. You should not care
what is the number on your bank account but how many apples you can buy it.
And with that measure, banks have been "stealing" your purchase power almost
always. (Actually I think it is impossible in the long term to have banks pay
more than inflation rate)

2\. Assuming you save 100 dollars and expect to have 101 dollars in one year's
time, central bank can decide to lower the interest rates so that you have
less than 101 dollars one year later. Why would central bank "taking" from
your 101 to 100 be any less stealing than from 100 to 99?

3\. Finally, you agreeing to lend your money to the bank with whatever
interest rate bank offers is _completely_ voluntary action from your side. Not
only you can choose to consume the money immediately, there are also
practically limitless other opportunities to invest (or "invest"...) your
money. Corporate debt, real estate, equity, cryptocurrency, gold, commodities
etc. Now, of course, you can argue that these other options are somehow less
practical or more risky in certain ways, and that _society_ needs to keep your
hand and guarantee you a risk-free and practical way to move your consumption
decisions over time. And that society needs to make this guarantee to you
_completely regardless_ of the welfare cost (unemployment, recessions etc)
delivering this guarantee has. At this point, my nose is starting to detect
the repulsive smell of socialism, totalitarianism or something like that...

~~~
tom_mellior
1\. As you say yourself, nominal values and purchasing power are different
concepts. So why should we treat them the same?

2\. If I have a contract saying I will get that extra dollar, I absolutely
expect to get it and will take the bank to court if I don't. If I only _hope_
for that, it's different. But in any case, my contract is with my bank, not
the central bank.

3\. It's not voluntary if cash is effectively useless and I _must_ use a bank.

The rest of your post is just bizarre. Standing up for property rights isn't
socialist. I don't think this thread is going anywhere, so I'm out. I hope you
have a great day.

------
buzer
One big issue with society that would be completely cashless is that it will
essentially grant ability for foreign governments to control people in
different countries. There is an on-going case in Finland where Boris
Rotenberg (allegedly someone who is in inner circles of Russia's leadership)
is in OFAC sanctions list due to Crimea occupation, but he also has Finnish
citizenship and he's not in EU's sanctions list. Due to being on OFAC list
Finnish banks are refusing to accept payments coming from his Finnish account
in fear of US actions (including fines and sanctions against the banks).

If you are not even allowed to do things in cash (and to be honest, it's
pretty close to that in Finland already), you would also need to disallow
banks from blocking transactions that are not breaking local laws. Otherwise
in the worst case you are making it so that foreign governments have power to
force people to commit crimes (like being unable to pay taxes since bank
refuses to move the money).

------
mehrdadn
Forget all the issues with government control and illegal transactions and
human rights and whatnot for a second.

How are people supposed to transact in an emergency without cash? Say if
there's an earthquake, the power/internet goes down, etc.?

------
hpaavola
Cashless society would be a pain for kids, homeless, people with trash credit
history, etc. So either we need to force all banks to give their internet bank
access and some sort of debit card to absolutely anybody who just asks that
without any fees, or cash must be accepted.

~~~
ekianjo
And if you make kids use cashless means of payment this means more tracking
even earlier in life. No thank you.

------
pushtheenvelope
There is a very good presentation on the Case for Electronic Cash by Jerry
Brito of the Coin Center non-profit. I highly recommend people watch it to
understand why cash is important to preserve an open, liberal society.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmXDJpYF46E&fbclid=IwAR3tBKD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmXDJpYF46E&fbclid=IwAR3tBKD1PRUK8qt32VaR1K2uuF36JqLVSVvwkiA_2_TO7Up_5881Xf_Z8Yc)

------
GhostVII
I am essentially fully cashless at this point, I don't carry cash in my wallet
or anything, but I still think it is incredibly important to have the option
to use cash should I choose to. If for some reason I start getting rejected by
banks, or dislike the restrictions that they are placing on me, it is a last
resort that I can always fall back to. It prevents me from being fully
dependent on private parties like banks, which I find valuable, even if I am
unlikely to actually use it. I don't think that, as a society, we should be
forcing people to hand over their private information to some bank in order to
go through everyday life.

------
eitland
Recently the governor of "Norges Bank", the central bank of Norway made it
clear he wants to enforce that shops have to accept cash.

The reason for this is that we might need cash in an emergency.

Sources (for those who master Norwegian) :
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%C3%B8ystein+olsen+kontanter&t=fpa...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%C3%B8ystein+olsen+kontanter&t=fpas&ia=web)

------
dmix
> “If for example I go shopping, and it’s recorded exactly how much schnapps
> I’ve bought, that’s an invasion of my privacy,” he says.

Wouldn't a constitutional change only be limited to paying for gov fines,
fees, and taxes with cash?

> Following a recent EU directive, Austrian banks are phasing out “ATM cards”
> and renaming them debit cards. And some banks are currently planning to
> equip the new debit cards with the ability to make payments online, as is
> common elsewhere.

I'm confused do they mean they are just getting the ability to pay with debit
cards at stores in 2019? Or is this just adding the VISA part to debit cards?

~~~
vinay427
At least in Switzerland many people have V Pay or Maestro debit cards which
often can't be used online. I imagine it's something similar in Austria.

[https://www.ubs.com/ch/en/help/debitcard/difference.html](https://www.ubs.com/ch/en/help/debitcard/difference.html)

(The "online" row lists "N.A.")

~~~
phillc73
I think that's correct. By default when I opened an Austrian bank account I
was only issued a Maestro card, which when used does debit my current account
balance, it can't be used for online transactions.

I still have a Visa debit card linked to an account elsewhere, but 90% of my
online shopping is now paid for with Sofort, a direct bank transfer, or even
on credit. E.g. Bergfreund
([https://www.bergfreunde.eu/](https://www.bergfreunde.eu/)) offers 10 day
payment terms for online transactions.

------
ur-whale
This makes me incredibly happy: there is _finally_ a western European
democracy that makes the outlawing of cash a true political issue.

The EU has quietly taken away what I consider to be a fundamental human rights
over the past 10 years (the right to buy something without the whole world
knowing what that was), and no one noticed.

Did you know you can't buy a car cash in most EU countries?

[EDIT]: This is issue is nowhere on the political radar of most USians because
it hasn't come to your shores. But it should, because it's coming.

~~~
concerned_user
You can buy a car with cash but you will need extra documents to prove the
cash is obtained legally, otherwise you can. Happens all the time actually in
my country at least, so I am unsure where is your information coming from. It
is less convenient than the bank transfer and takes extra paperwork but
possible. Also of course you can go to used car market or buy from ads from a
private individual, most of them will refuse cash tho. Nothing of it is
anonymous of course.

~~~
stallmanite
Curious as to why a private seller would not accept cash. What's the
disadvantage?

------
narag
What I find most interesting is how those parties seem to find out what people
wants and incorporate it into their agenda. Very different thing is parties
building their agendas, usually around authoritarian measures coming from some
lobbies and then shoving them down our throats with massive amounts of
propaganda.

------
sarcasmOrTears
There is no debate about cashless honestly, it's like debating if raping
children should be legal or not, except that without cash you easily get to a
society where powerful people rule the world (see Epstein). Those who argue
against cash should be seen with suspicion and removed from their positions of
power if they have any. I'd say even jail time should be considered when it
comes to anti-cash lobbying, using the same penalty currently used by enslaved
but multiplied by the total population.

Sounds absurd? Sounds like too much? It's the only way to keep those
tyrannical maniacs in check.

------
a3_nm
In addition to privacy, another argument against credit cards are fees like
interchange fees and assessments
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee).

When I pay by card, banks and Visa/Mastercard get a cut of my purchase, which
the merchant doesn't get (and I don't think they are allowed to pass on these
fees to the consumer). When I pay by cash, the merchant gets 100%. I usually
prefer to give my money to a local shop rather than to financial middlemen.

~~~
tatami
It's not quite 100%, the merchant has costs associated with using cash: The
time a cashier has to spend counting the cash register's content, time spent
on bank runs to put away earnings/get extra coins for change, some fees
associated with it, some amount that gets "lost"...

I remember the cost was less than credit cards take, but not much lower than
Girocard payments.

------
_trampeltier
Every bank is a private company and can choose there customers. So if no bank
want you (what reason ever) you just fall out of the system complete.

~~~
mikekchar
I totally agree with this. Japan is still mostly a cash based society. One of
the things I love about it is that I can still rent a car or book a hotel room
without a credit card. This keeps people on an even footing. If you are
homeless without an address (and therefore a bank account), you can still buy
things. If you have poor credit, then you can still pay with cash for
anything.

The anonymity of cash is nice, but the lack of discrimination of cash is its
real feature.

~~~
ekianjo
Mostly cashless still in Japan but changing fast with PayPay and its
competitors leading the adoption for many daily point of sales already.

------
fractallyte
It's also worth noting that almost every bank in Austria charges customers for
the 'privilege' of having a bank account...

~~~
woodson
True. But no ATM fees! (Or did that change?)

~~~
fractallyte
There are no ATM fees, but that's also the case in other countries where a
bank account is free.

------
Abishek_Muthian
Privacy is definitely at stake in cash-less electronic transactions, but going
cash-less might be the only way to curb corruption in a country like India.

In India, only pathetic (<10-20%) percentage of people pay direct tax, what
remains after corrupt bureaucrats take their share is what spent on
development of the country.

It's no brainer on why cash transactions is the preferred mode for the
corrupt. Cash-less electronic transactions, fool-proof audit backed by tech
like blockchain seems like only option left to curb this menace and save the
country.

As far as privacy is concerned, due to the loop-hole in the law, any citizen's
bank account can be accessed by the authorities at any time; so cash-less
transactions isn't going to change much here. Corrupt, don't use the bank
accounts to store their stash anyways, at-least within the country.

But India is not ready for cash-less transaction anytime soon, as evident from
the demonetisation of 2016 in which promoting cash-less transaction was one of
the main arguments.

------
l0b0
People will still do illegal/subversive/socially unacceptable things and be
paid for them. So a "cashless" society would generate a massive demand for
alternative forms of currency. There are already plenty of those, including
digital ones, so this might in the long run be disastrous for national
currencies. Which would be interesting but also disastrous for a lot of people
in the meantime.

------
peterjussi
I don't see why cashless must mean non-anonymous. There are chargeable payment
cards around the world that effectively are anonymous and cashless.

------
t0astbread
This makes me wonder how much fintech is regulated in regards to consumer
privacy. You'd thing that with all the care that's being taken to (try to)
ensure the safety of people's money, regulators would also consider their
privacy.

------
cbhl
If a seller is required, by law, to accept cash, what happens to online-only
retailers like Amazon? Do they just close up shop and leave? Do they restrict
online purchases to people within a reasonable drive of a retail location?

------
iamsb
Other than food and drinks, I have not really bought anything using cash in
last couple of years. Everything else it seems I have been buying using a
debit card, online or offline.

So I am bit a lost on how this protects privacy. Is this only important in
context of services such as legal prostitution, drug use etc where having cash
transaction will feel safer? If that is the case, I am sure those businesses
will continue to operate in cash-ful manner. If there are other use cases,
please do share.

As an aside Austria is the first country I came across where the immigration
website uses phrase "third country workers"[1], which is mildly disappointing
to see.

[1] -
[https://www.migration.gv.at/en/welcome/](https://www.migration.gv.at/en/welcome/)

~~~
bmn__
Why does the phrase disappoint you?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_country_national](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_country_national)

------
LoSboccacc
wouldn't this make digital services incostitutional? should provider in
Austria like Netflix start accepting makes cash envelopes?

------
eloff
As a software engineer, I feel all money should be digital and the IRS should
be replaced with an algorithm. Fairer and more efficient for all. As a human
living in a fallible state, I don't ever want the government to have that kind
of power and visibility into my private life.

~~~
Svip
You put a lot of trust in the people developing that algorithm. Do you get to
vote for an algorithm replacement every four years?

~~~
scarejunba
The algorithm exists. Just because it’s not machine-executable doesn’t make it
not an algorithm.

~~~
pgeorgi
It's exercised by humans though, with gives _some_ accountability.

Try asking a computer in court what it was thinking when it ran the algorithm.

~~~
scarejunba
Why? The algo should obviously be public so if you went to court you'd
question the algo or its impl, not the computer. After all, you only want
restitution and correction of the issue, not punishment.

~~~
tastroder
> The algo should obviously be public

Given that, at least in the US, people had to regularly sue corporations that
defend the secrecy of their fancy algorithms^W^W Excel sheets as trade
secrets... that's not as obvious as you might think.

~~~
eloff
Which is completely unrelated to public entities.

~~~
tastroder
Why would that be? Health care providers, bail risk assessment software for
courts, ... it's not like some public entity like the IRS would be likely to
develop much in-house.

~~~
eloff
Just like the IRS must publish all their rules on taxes, likewise that would
be necessary for their algorithm.

