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.
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.
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.
I carry cash and I give it to people in need, I don't mind cashless payment being the default but at least some of the following things need to happen before we can fully move to that:
Canada Post needs to open a savings account/credit card so that it is not profit motivated and accessible to disadvantaged people. Most poor people can't afford the annual fee for cards with decent benefits, and to get it waived you need to have significant deposits with your bank/credit union.
We need a public option compared to Visa/MC/Amex, even if it's only usable domestically. Letting a handful of non-Canadian companies make a percentage of all Canadians' transactions is ridiculous and if there was no cash then they would look to jack up rates to whatever they wanted.
We need regulations in how credit card companies can charge merchants and customers.
Credit cards are the issue for me. An unnecessary third party skimming money (not to mention data) out of every transaction we make.
I can't NOT use them though, since the cash back can be too good to pass up. If credit cards were regulated into irrelevance I'd be almost 100% on cash.
Interac AFAIK used to be a nonprofit, but few years back became a for profit corporation. While I'm happy for the option, I'd stick with paper/metal where possible if CCs weren't a thing.
Yeah, with an okay card the cash backs are just too good to pass up on… literally a couple thousand a year we’d be spitting on between my wife and I just making the purchases we’d have done anyway. I wouldn’t give a crap about going back to cash if it wasn’t for that.
Which is kind of surprising because 25 years ago it was the opposite, based on Revelation 13:16 -- "Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead" ...
which many took to indicate the use of mobile phones as the only way to purchase anything.
I find very interesting how Canada doesn't have a bank controlled by the government that can provide affordable services.
E-transfer is also something I think should be maintained by the government like Brazil's Pix. I'd happily welcome Open Finance as well, but that might be harder.
I used to carry cash all the time, mostly to have some to give away to those in need. But COVID pretty much shut that down ... and now I'm barely making ends meet so don't have the spare money to give anymore.