Cashless Society 661
roomisigloomis writes "France has released "en masse" a new card to replace money. No private information is stored on the card and anybody can use it. Just like cash: you lose it and someone else uses it. Do you think we could be nearing the end of life of paper money?"
We need this in Canada (Score:1, Informative)
Doesn't work... (Score:5, Informative)
The reason for that is simple and the same as why, in France, the new card is not being well accepted: It has an expensive transaction cost compared to the price of the item you purshase (think 10 centims per transaction where you would use it to buy 1 Euro items), the fact that it is far from annonymous and finally the fact that the machine you use to "load" the card is compley and damn slow to manipulate (whant to buy ? Load your credit card, punch your PIN, wait until the bank answer, withdraw your card, load your cashcard, deposit, remove cash card, load it again, buy item - about 5 minutes for the average persone).
The only place here, in Geneva, where it is commonly used is for public phones and for paying for car park. Several articales of the French TV and the words from my French friends shows that the same apply to France.
Re:Old news (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Australia hasn't had paper money for 10 years! (Score:2, Informative)
Best of all you can go for a surf with $5 in your back pocket and buy a pie & chips for lunch without having to leave a wallet on the beach.
The plastic money is also much harder wearing than paper money, lasting 5 to 10 times as long, and I have yet to see a nasty crumpled and dirty note like you get with paper money. (Dirt & grime doesn't stick to it very well)
A Cash-Free France with the Moneo Smart Card? Don' (Score:3, Informative)
Why so many different standards? (Score:5, Informative)
As pointed out in numerous posts, cards like this exist all over Europe... and yet, AFAIK, none are compatible.
Think about it: with the Euro, I can go in any of the 12 participating countries and pay with the same money, without any problem. With this great cool new gadget, I'm limited to a few shops in my own country. Oh, and I kinda like the euro coins, it's fun to see some from 12 different countries mixing in my pocket. This thing is just a bit of plastic. And it's expensive too.
Needless to say, I'm not getting one before I can use it all over the EU. And before it gets cheaper, as well.
Person to person payments (Score:2, Informative)
A safe encryption based handshaking requires an additional 'master card' with the intelligence to do the transer inside the reader. So its very unlikely your local homeless will walk around with a reader :) But it is possible!
Point is that the card of the merchent has to be emptied at the bank as well, and why is this important? Well; the bank has absolutely no way of tracking transactions to real persons.
This is the beaty of the system; in contrary to all electronic payment systems; this is the only one that actually makes your payments more anonymous.
Netherlands.. already here too.. (Score:2, Informative)
I don't use chip cards where I would use paper money - I use PIN (my bank account) for these so I will have a limit. The Chip cards are great for places you would ordinarily carry around loose change.
Re:You keep all your money in cash? (Score:4, Informative)
Danmønt (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to see how to bring down the amount of cash that people have, you should have a look at the Danish "Dankort" system. It is because of that system that Denmark has the lowest amount of cash in circulation compared to the size of the economy. Personally I almost never carry any cash around.
http://www.dankort.dk/ (Danish)
The Dankort system is an online system with identity, but it has been constructed in a way that makes almost anybody able to get it. Of a population of 5 million, there are 3.3 million Dankort. If you subtract the children and the very old people, you'll find that almost anybody uses it.
Lars Dybdahl.
Fatal Flaws - Not quite. (Score:5, Informative)
And hopefully, it takes more work to mess a chip up than a magnetic strip.
Re:I'm not sure.. (Score:5, Informative)
Someone could just probably figure out how money is "stored" and just keep on replenishing. Note the card is anonymous.
David Chaum's digicash [vipul.net] system was a good solution to this problem. He developed a system of completely anonymous (even to the bank) e-cash. The executive summary is: using techniques common in encryption, the cash is unforgeable and can be spent once. If you spend the cash twice, there's a random challenge-response sequence you have to go through each time, and you will have now revealed enough information that you're no longer anonymous, and the fact that the money is being double-billed is detected and prevented.
Googling for "Chaum" and "digicash" gets you a lot of articles which explain the system (which is quite complex) in a level of detail beyond that which is appropriate for slashdot. :) It's a bit hard to believe (at least without going through the math yourself) that it's both anonymous and unforgeable, but that's the beauty of it. There are also quite a few articles about Chaum's company "Digicash" which appears to have been poorly managed. That doesn't change the fact that the mathematics behind digicash are sound.
In socialist Canada, the card cashes you! (Score:5, Informative)
Well guess what?
Canada has been there for years.
4 out of 5 stores (or in a mall, every store) has Interac [interac.org]machines. Direct debit, pin protected, and ANY bank card on the interac network works on it. That is every major bank in Canada, almost all the little ones, plus most credit unions.
Explain how a pin protected card (which is cancelable by phone) is better than this 'new' french system? I mean, their system is just basically a revamp of european phone cards.
The only benefits the french system has over Interac is anonymity - As for that, we do still have cash for that, or in the case of a true cashless society, just trade in precious minerals. (eg, gold [google.com].)
By the way, Interac direct payment has been rolled out since `94
Re:Why so many different standards? (Score:2, Informative)
Chipper is dead now. The Postbank has stepped over to Chipknip, so now we only have one cardsystem left that nobody uses unless there isn't any other choice... The idea is good, but there is a grave lack of users here...
Re:How do I count it? (Score:2, Informative)
However, when vending machines that accept coin cards become ubiquitous you are never too far away from a way to verify your wealth. No PIN codes, the value on the card is shown immediately when you stick it in.
Re:The End Of Paper Money? (Score:2, Informative)
They programmed it so that you can access the money at all times but you need to enter the pin to even see the bank account or name of the user.
Yes its totally anonymous.
The card is completely self containing; there is no communication to the bank needed.
Re:Who gets the float...as if I need to ask (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? Do you think that currently when you have x dollars in YOUR bank account, the bank does not touch that money and keeps it safely secured for you? Or do they loan it out to other customers and earn interest? Of course the latter - that's how banks work!
Re:Danmønt (Score:2, Informative)
On the negative side, the Dankort makes things difficult for foreign visitors to Denmark. Many shops such as grocery stores only take Dankort and cash... they don't take Visa or Mastercard.
When I was temporarily living in Denmark I found myself using cash for almost everything, and having to carry thousands of Krone around with me. I was unable to get a personal Dankort from a bank because I didn't have a CPR number (the equivalent of a US Social Security Number).
Re:If it were free... (Score:4, Informative)
It's neithert new nor free, actually... Banks do take a cut on every transaction you make. I live in Brittany, and in our region it's been available for about a year now, and it's not being very succesful.
The idea is to use it for small buys, (normally, under around 50eu) for which Debit Card (Carte Bleue) transactions are deemed too expensive (most shops won't take your CB for less than 15eu). At any rate, I know of some businesses that have dropped Moneo, because the banks' commisions are still too high for small ammounts
In Switzerland... (Score:3, Informative)
I think it comes more or less standard with all bank cards, and it's free (techincally; maybe the bank charges for it as part of its general services, but the name "Cash" doesn't appear on my invoices.
I've been using extensively for the past year, and while it has some definite advantages, I don't see that replacing paper money for quite a while.
The good side:
- It's fairly easy to use; put it into a Cash-aware ATM (most are), transfer up to CHF 200 (ca. USD 150), and then insert it into a Cash-aware machine, hit "OK" and you've paid.
- No need to have the exact change anymore; very convenient for bus tickets.
The bad side:
- Not many places are Cash-aware: bus ticket machines are, some shops are (newsstands, for example), and that's about it...
- If someone steals my bank card, he or she can empty the card's Cash without any control; but since the amount is, at most, CHF 200 and there is only so many bus tickets one can buy, it's not that big a problem; besides, it works the same with paper money...
- Although quite fast, the system is not instantaneous: transactions can take up to 10-20 seconds; that's fast, except when the bus doesn't wait...
- As far as I know, the different national electronic cash systems are not intercompatible; hence, what works in Switzerland will probably not work with the French "Moneo" or Belgian "Proton".
All things said, it's quite convenient for small purchases and bus tickets, especially the "no exact change necessary" part. but it's still quite limited. Don't expect "Cash"- or "Moneo"-like systems to completely replace your paper-and-nickel money any time soon.
Re:Old news (Score:1, Informative)
I used the card heavily the two weeks that I was there and really wish that we had something similar in the states.
Re:Old news (Score:2, Informative)
here's the official site in english [octopuscards.com].
ERG Australia has signed a contract to use them in the land of OZ.
The octopus card is in no way anonymous.
Re:Fatal Flaws (Score:2, Informative)
Re:FP (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's "Verbing weirds language".
Moneo... (Score:2, Informative)
Moneo works this way, with your credit card (visa/MC), your bank will offer you to subscribe to Moneo for a yearly fee (around 10 EUR/USD), if you do so you can load up virtual cash onto your credit card (smart cards in France), up to 100 EUR.
In order for a shop to accept Moneo payments, they need a terminal rented by their bank for a monthly fee. The terminal will accept either credit cards or Moneo or both. You give your card, the terminal asks for your choice of Moneo or Credit and you can proceed with the transaction. Please note that the bank receives a fee for each payment done on the terminal, this fee being paid by the seller. If your balance is considered low by the terminal you will be offered a reloading of cash onto your card, this is something that interest the seller as this time he will receive a fee paid by the bank if your reload cash at his terminal.
If we sum up the whole system:
* customer pays a yearly fee for Moneo.
* shop owner rents a terminal to its bank for a monthly fee.
* on each payment a small fee is paid by the shop owner to the bank
* on each refill the bank pays a small fee to the shop owner
* if you loose your credit card with moneo, the credit card might be barred but the Moneo cash can still be used (you might loose up to 100 EUR)
So the real question is, why not simply make shop owners accept credit card payments for real small fees instead of setting up such a system ? The answer is simple, because the Moneo system is all profit for the banks, not for the consumer or shop owner, the BANKS!
And in order to deploy rapidly the Moneo system, the german technology was choosen (Geldkarte, 56 bit DES crypto!!!!), which means no PKI and rather weak crypto.... But the banks don't care, it's not their money, and very often all card loss insurances will not cover the money loaded onto Moneo....
With all thos elements my choice is clear, Moneo, NO!
Re:CNN's cluelessness/MY cluelessness... (Score:5, Informative)
Step 1) $100 are downloaded from John Smith's bank account to user card #U12345.
Step 2) Smith approaches Adult Store merchant with $80 worth of embarrassingly large and bumpy sex toys.
Step 3) User Card #U12345 securely transfers $80 to Merchant Card. This transaction takes place off of a network.
Step 4) Smith walks away with sex toys in black plastic bag. Bag later breaks on the bus, contents come spilling out.
Step 5) Merchant subseqently uploads large sum of money (including Smith's $80) to bank. Bank is unaware of original sources of money.
It's the fact that Step 3 takes place without authorization from a central network which makes this anonymous and potentially superior to a regular debit card transaction.
Please "securely transfer" my mod points from the parent post to this one. Thanx!
I'm wondering about other form factors now. Would it be more practical to have a user "card" in the form of one of those keychain thingies? Or perhaps a bracelet with a tiny dongle that plugs into the merchant's reader. Further, the user ought to be able to require mandatory PIN usage on his/her card. It won't help if the card is lost, but at least no-one else could profit from your misfortune. Put your name and phone number on the card and it might actually be returned to you. Finally, what's to stop this anonymous transaction from being the basis of a money laundering scheme? And if there is nothing preventing it, what are the odds that this would be allowable in the US?