Could this be the thin end of the wedge?
I think all the banks plan on getting rid of cheques (and bank drafts?) entirely by 2012. There do seem to be moves afoot to eliminate actual cash completely over the next few years. A pure fiat currency based on nothing physical whatsoever is going to be…interesting.
Doubtless the psychopaths in charge think that this means every transaction and every movement of the populace will be tracked by them. Equally certain is that within a week some form of unofficial agreed medium of exchange will have been adopted by the populace - like cigarettes in all those old prison movies.
A couple of years ago, I predicted cash would be abolished by 2015.
The next step is to allow everyone to make person to person payments by mobile phone. Then they’ll be able to phase out cash.
What are the drug dealers going to do? Ask for payment in gold? A cashless society will be very bullish for gold prices.
Irish Banks Pushing for Cashless Banking…
and with FFs help they have more or less achieved this for alot of their customers, hands up all the people who are a bit ‘cash less’ cos of the bankers corruption and ineptitude… I know I am. 
They are doing away with the cheque in the UK by 2018
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/16/fond-farewell-cheque
are PayPal listed ?
Paypal is owned by eBay, one of their better investments.
McDonalds encourage people to use card, with chip and pin and cards that only require validation for one in ten transactions it is as quick for vendors to process cards as cash. It is also a lot more secure and requires less end of day and back office processing. If you look at microfinance in developing countries, the realisation that ‘everyone’ has a mobile phone make it the defacto tool of choice for paying for stuff or transferring from person to person. The main banks may push to ditch cash soon but that gap will be filled by new entrants to the banking market such as Tesco. A supermarket has the technology to deal with cash / cards / cheques etc. at every checkout so they will happily fill that gap for a while. Interesting times ahead with the benefits and risks of more service providers.
I predict mattress sales skyrocketing. People will find their old mattresses a lot less comfortable without them being stuffed full of fifty euro notes.
From speaking with a business owner in Tuam I believe this is already possible and due to go live next year if all goes to plan - albeit on small scale.
zapatag.ie/zapa-latest-news.html
I was told cash can be credited to peoples cards which are attached to their phones. This can then be used to pay for products or services around the town and ‘cash’ can also be transferred between peoples cards.
It’s proving popular so far as a loyalty scheme, be interesting to see if it goes further.
I always thought that the real issue was moneyless banks!
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Cashless Banking…
lets take it one step further , do away with banks alltogether… might save the planet too while we’re at it
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Can’t see it happening, to many old people would be put off by it.
NIB aren’t the first to go cashless First active did it - I closed me my accound after I need access to funs but they were’t able to give me anything that would clear that day, go a “Bank draft” which turned out be be a Bank of Ireland check.
If we were to go cash less every EU country would need to do it. Image arriving here as a tourist with cash you can’t spend ?
Bill Gates predicted in 1995 that cash would no longer exist in 20 years. I was trying to picture homeless people on the street asking you to transfer some money to their electronic wallet.
Hardly surprising, sure these fuckers have less cash on hand than I do . (E22.30)
Time to get more LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) in place. Here’s the design manual.. Has anyone here any firsthand experience of it?
Thanks for the link, sums it all up,
We can never go cashless, since the state would never be able to resist the opportunity to expand and abuse it’s powers and start snooping on private citizens activities. They do this routinely with mobile phone calls of criminals, suspected criminals, targeted journalists and people who they regard as dangerous to the state.
How are you going to buy Charly or “insert banned item here”?
Say you want to sell your old bicycle to your neighbour, you can of course do it electronically, and some people might prefer this as a convenient method to keep track of spending. But would you want to pay tax on it? (There have been proposals in the past from revenue to pursue vendors in Buy & sell and loot for VAT, but it was deemed too inconvenient)
How are the travellers going to operate? My own personal dealings with them, transactions have all been cash based.
What about all the builders surviving today on cash in hand jobs?
What about those who seek to avoid government regulations and get jobs done?
How are you supposed to bribe someone (brown paper bags)?
What would the illegal immigrants working in this country do? and what would be the fallout for companies like An post, flexco and western union?
If we were to go cashless, then would not the banks actually become systemic?
How much more power would the ESB be given? no electricity = no transactions.
What happens after a storm knocks out the electricity in West cork for several days and you want to buy a bottle of calor gas for heating and cooking?
What alternative currency would people use? In Russia, during the inflation of the 90s, dollars were acceptable and necessary to get goods that were not possible using the devalued Rouble.
Would not the black economy thrive after an initial setback, since now there would be no mechanism to monitor it or estimate it’s size.
If we move to a cashless society it will be the biggest mistake central planners ever made → israelfinancialexpert.blogspot.c … -will.html
Hang on, haven’t we already had cashless banking for several years??
I mean, when AIB and BoI borrowed 200 billion from megabanks in New York and London to flood the Irish mortgage market, does anyone seriously think this involved huge crate loads of euros arriving by cargo ship in Dublin docks for distribution to bank branches around the country??
Or haven’t they been told all a loan needed was changing a number on a spreadsheet, and then waiting for the fax to come through confirming you now have X million to blow for Y months???
Now THAT, that is cashless banking.