I’ve been mindful of the ways companies can track my spending habits, and so have been increasingly keen on using cash and avoiding mobile banking/payment apps like the plague. I realize that this varies by country and might be a bit far out, but the thought does linger in the back of my mind. If current trends continue, how much longer until they take cash and browser-based banking from us? Or will there be a reason those options should continue to exist (and be easily usable) far into the future? And perhaps:
- What else can I, as an individual, do about this?
- Is there a tendency for larger banks or smaller credit unions to push towards mobile-only online banking?
- What does it look like in countries where cashless and mobile payments are the norm?
My bank alone has closed 99 of its high street branches this year.
I used to do a 2 minute walk to my local bank, then they started closing them further and further afield, until I now have to drive 20 minutes to my bank.
I am predominantly a cash man.
I dont buy anything online from any of the big names like Amazon etc. I search around until I find what I want in a store that I can drive to.
To be honest I would rather spend an hour driving to a store, and pay the extra money on petrol, than pay poxy rip off delivery charges and waste my valuable time waiting in for the wankers.
I also avoid all banking apps like the plague, in fact all apps that are recommended by any store staff. not that I can install them on lineage phone anyway.
I can only login into my online bank via VPN if I am using French server. I dont know how long that will last. I refuse to allow my ISP access to my online habits.
I am gutted that the UK government closed down all our bitcoin ATM’s. This was the first warning sign something was going to change. Take away our freedoms yet again
At least when bitcoin was cheaper a few years ago, I could spend some money out of my state pension, buy £20 worth and save for the future.
I would be a zillionaire by now Rodney! LOL
But this ultimately leads us into the government crypto currency (Central bank digital currency) when we will all be fucked, because they will control everything.
I recently changed my gas and electricy supplier because they would not let me pay online while I had my VPN on, even if I was using a UK based server. wankers, didnt want my money, so I dumped them. My new provider is better and I can pay anywhere in the world.
All they want is everyone to have a fucking smart meter installed, so they can rip us off and charge extra for using gas and electricity in the early evening peak period, when we are cooking for our families, and bathing our children. Wankers!
Monero has the good aspects of cash, such as anonymity, but in digital form, so you can still send it anywhere around the world at the push of a button.
I’ll fucking make my own currency! (this might not be a joke)
With blackjack, and hookers?
Monero already exists and fulfills this role.
no, physical currency is way better. you can actually hold it in your fucking hand! no computers, phones or internet needed!
Oneday they will find a reason why its necessary for the greater good.
I didn’t see any English articles about that, bit just recently it made the rounds in German speaking news outlets that cash is very well trackable. Thanks to the individual serial number on every euro bill, they can track you from the ATM to the bar. And banks, big supermarkets etc. already do it. There is even a German company selling this data.
More information (unfortunately in german): https://netzpolitik.org/2025/bargeld-tracking-du-hast-ueberwachungsinstrumente-im-portemonnaie/
Why the fuck can’t I just buy shit in peace anymore.
The gang discovers money laundering
I’m not Scandinavian or live there, I think they are possibly the most cashless countries today. I’m in Japan where we just moved away from fax machines for banking and cash is very much alive and well. So I don’t have any specific experience to share, just general thoughts.
how much longer until they take cash and browser-based banking from us?
I would question the framing here. I don’t think “the man” will come in and “take it from us.” The move towards digital money and online banking isn’t so much prescribed by a dark cabal than it is driven by convenience. If the majority of people didn’t find anything useful about it, they would not adapt these things like tap to pay or online banking.
Bartering wasn’t made immediately illegal when currency came in. Currency was made to make bartering easier and more fairly divisible. Things changed at a glacial pace to get to our modern economy.
Banks and credit unions do have an incentive to get you to do your banking online. They can close all their locations except for ATMs and get you to do your in-person interactions with a central video call center. That saves them labor costs and they like that.
And security agencies and the revenue service like people spending digital, traceable money. It cuts out the gray area where under the table shenanigans take place.
As far as a push to online banking is concerned, there are a few factors that overlap. The aforementioned labor cost issue for the banks. A lack of legislation or regulations to provide banking that is accessible to preferably all people online. And then there is competing regulations to make it safe for people to use. And with that you run into the issue that you need the two biggest mobile OS’s to get you access via the web or the app that does all. This is where we need to lobby our political leaders and the stance should be: don’t leave grandma in the lurch. We have more old people than young ones in most western countries, old people vote in higher numbers, let’s frame a way to preserve online banking in the most privacy-friendly manner around how an octogenarian should be able to use it safely. I think this is how you cover most bases with a good chance of success, even in the pre-authoritarian US. That should include browser-based banking and authentication means that don’t only depend on Google and Apple.
As far as cash or concerned there will come a point where governments and central banks just throw their hands in the air and say: it’s too expensive to keep printing and then maintaining the money in physical form. That’s it, we go digital, damn a possible apocalypse and the fact that when we do we will be absolutely hosed when that happens. And, realistically, even if we retained physical money during the apocalypse, the economy would still collapse. Wars have shown us that money is quickly replaced by barter of cigarettes, booze, and other desirable or necessary goods. So you’re “only” left with the privacy and liberty considerations to spend cash without anyone keeping a constant ledger. And I fear they will be drowned out by “hey, we can stamp out all drug trafficking” promises. Not realizing that like most rivers finding the sea most drug traffic participants will find a way in the new digital only system as well. And that gives me hope. I think we will see physical cash disappear this century. But at the same pace, people will find ways to avoid being tracked.
What can you do? Keeping your fingers crossed, become politically engaged with parties who want to protect old people in an online banking world, and vote for politicians who want to preserve cash. Just know that your best funded co campaigners will be the mob and tax dodgers.
Bartering wasn’t made immediately illegal when currency came in. Currency was made to make bartering easier and more fairly divisible.
I pointed this out above, but I think it’s worth repeating: bartering did not exist before currency, or at least there’s no anthropological evidence suggesting it did. People barter when they are used to currency, but don’t have access to any.
Maybe barter is the wrong word in this instance. I mean rudimentary, handshake trade within an equally rudimentary community. Farmer A has wheat, hunter B shot two deer. A agrees to give half a blurb of wheat to B for 2 blorbs worth of prime venison. Both make it through the winter. That’s what I meant.
there’s no anthropological evidence suggesting it did
There’s always barter. The vast majority of human beings that have ever lived never once handled currency of any kind.
Well yeah you don’t need currency when value is based on physical stuff Catan style. I make brick, I trade for milk.
But when you have a trade that doesn’t make physical goods or doesn’t involve the stuff you have to offer you’ll need a do-good coupon that everyone agrees to represent value.
Economies that worked without cash still had debt.
Debt and obligation do not require money, but they do require people that will give you the things you need in exchange for “I’ll owe you one.”
Yeah, except that most people are lazy and will default to whatever is most convinient, even if it goes against their best interest. People use social media services that creates entire psychological profiles on them simple because they friends are on it.
Bartering is a replacement for currency. There is no anthropological evidence of bartering existing before the introduction of currency. You would think somewhere there would be, but there’s not.
True. But gift economies aren’t really something that can just be implemented by individuals living in a modern state. That requires an entire society to be organized around it. Barter can.
If we go by the WEF, then certainly before 2030.
At least in Canada, friends at the bank I used to work in IT were briefed in 2024 that CBDCs were coming down the pipe at some point in the future.
