Sweden Moving Towards Cashless Economy 447
cold fjord writes "Sweden is rapidly moving towards a cashless economy. How will Sweden, and other countries in the future, balance efficiency, privacy, government control, and civil liberties? Or will they do all that technology allows? 'Bills and coins represent only 3 percent of Sweden's economy, compared to an average of 9 percent in the eurozone and 7 percent in the U.S. ... The Swedish Bankers' Association says the shrinkage of the cash economy is already making an impact in crime statistics. The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down. The prevalence of electronic transactions — and the digital trail they generate — also helps explain why Sweden has less of a problem with graft than countries with a stronger cash culture, such as Italy or Greece, says economics professor Friedrich Schneider of the Johannes Kepler University in Austria. The flip side is the risk of cybercrimes. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention the number of computerized fraud cases, including skimming, surged to nearly 20,000 in 2011 from 3,304 in 2000.'"
A few years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
Some disadvantages as well... (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree there are many advantages to a cashless society but one weakness has bothered me for a while. I've personally gone mostly cashless over the last few years and have several times been unable to give anything to a homeless person. At times in the past I've offered food or bought someone a hamburger but there's not always the time or access to nearby vendors, cash is the easiest way to give a little help.
Also just yesterday I met a kid selling candy bars for his school fundraiser and wasn't able to help out there. It's almost like you have to give them card readers these days.
Re:Scary (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, it might be a completely alien thought to some (most?) Americans but some countries have citizens / subjects that trust their government to represent and protect their interests.
Re:Scary (Score:5, Interesting)
VISA does not know how many candy bars you bought, retail corporate does. Even back in the very early 90s I know for a fact they did, as I was getting interested in IT and our food store did complete transaction uploads nightly. Its not as much data as you'd think, even at 2400 baud. We had to upload distinct sales data anyway, think about it, otherwise how would automated push-ordering work? There were cube dwellers at corporate who's entire lives revolved around how many hamburger buns were sold the saturday of labor day or whatever.
So you are correct that VISA does not sell transaction detail records, but that doesn't mean they're not sold, it means the detail record comes from the retailer. At least it did 20 years ago.
Re:Scary (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait - 20 years ago some corporate bod knew that Mr Smith of 23 Acacia Avenue bought hamburger buns? I think not.
Yes. 20 years ago is only 1992, not like the 60s or something. In 1990, 91, something like that our mid size grocery store in a mid size suburb of a mid size city got roughly 386 class machine (was it a 486?) in the managers office and it ran the dbms that read the upc from the scanner and told the register what to charge and its tax status. Also it kept a list of all loyalty cards who owed us money for bounced checks (at one point my job was keeping that list updated). We uploaded nightly at 1030 and woe to the assistant manager who couldn't "close out" before the upload began. Also we downloaded lists of bounced checks/loyalty cards from OTHER stores..
We made a big freaking deal about giving you coupons that reflected your previous purchases. Maybe, like 99% of the population, you just threw that out, but that doesn't mean we didn't print the coupons at the bottom of the register tape. You had a "check cashing/loyalty card", right? To at least some extent your coupons mailed to your door reflected your purchases... the presence or lack of baby formula and dog food tended to reflect your previous purchases... We didn't do individualized personalized coupon mailings, but we did classify them.
Now I donno if they stored all the data, or how long. Now a days you'd assume they keep it all forever. Back then I would assume they wiped whatever they thought appropriate when they needed space. At that time (err, 93 or so) I was using a 40 meg drive and a 386/40 with 5 megs ram to run SLS linux.. Can't store everything forever with that tech.
Didn't you notice that if you bought something with a CC and returned it with a receipt, we credited your card without asking to see it again? We had all that stored.
I suppose it depends on location, blah blah blah, but I was at a unnoteworthy little grocery store most nights while going to tech school in the day.
Re:Scary (Score:2, Interesting)
So Swedes have an expectation that the government should do its job and not fuck up. That is already an immense amount of trust put in the government compared to what you see in the US. Over here you'll see many people who assume that if the government is doing something, then that thing must be done badly just by a law of nature. That they do not vote for crazy/stupid/belligerent people is probably one of the reasons that Swedes get to have expectations like that government should just work.
Re:Scary (Score:5, Interesting)