Do people just prefer paper or what?

In Australia in 2000 it was a lot more common to use your EFTPOS card everywhere than it is to use Laser here - is it a fundamental distrust of banks or are the irish a lot more attached to their paper money?

I'm trying to get into Laser myself but I usually use cash, I don't know why. I also have a VISA but use that only for internet purchases which isn't very often. Why can't we use the credit in our mobile phones for anything? Is it not secure or something?

What's it like in your country ?

Digital dosh is still lurking

Isn't about 95% of "money" digital?

When you look at money supply graphs, notes and coins are just a small fraction of all money.

I have no doubt that governments will try to do away with all physical money in the future.

20000miles wrote:

Isn't about 95% of "money" digital?

When you look at money supply graphs, notes and coins are just a small fraction of all money.

I have no doubt that governments will try to do away with all physical money in the future.

They may try, but market forces are stronger than governments. Zimbabwe has moved to petrol vouchers and coinage.

cactus flower wrote:

20000miles wrote:

Isn't about 95% of "money" digital?

When you look at money supply graphs, notes and coins are just a small fraction of all money.

I have no doubt that governments will try to do away with all physical money in the future.

They may try, but market forces are stronger than governments. Zimbabwe has moved to petrol vouchers and coinage.

Sadly, the market doesn't posess guns and ammo

20000miles wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

20000miles wrote:

Isn't about 95% of "money" digital?

When you look at money supply graphs, notes and coins are just a small fraction of all money.

I have no doubt that governments will try to do away with all physical money in the future.

They may try, but market forces are stronger than governments. Zimbabwe has moved to petrol vouchers and coinage.

Sadly, the market doesn't posess guns and ammo

The market relies on buying up the governments that do have them.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Do people just prefer paper or what?

They do, to the banking industry's eternal chagrin. People simply like to have the feel of a few notes in their hand and to write out cheques in this country. As much as credit and debit cards have arrived here, culturally we are still attached to our paper money. This creates lots of costs and very little return for the financial services industry so they very much encourage us all to use the likes of Laser. They like Laser because it's cheaper to operate and they can more readily charge you for the "convenience" of using it. As well as that, the feeling of actually spending money is dulled by using a card. This encourages overspending which puts people ina situation of debt where the bank can make money off people who fall behind on credit card payments. They can't do that when we use notes and cheques.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Do people just prefer paper or what?

They do, to the banking industry's eternal chagrin. People simply like to have the feel of a few notes in their hand and to write out cheques in this country. As much as credit and debit cards have arrived here, culturally we are still attached to our paper money. This creates lots of costs and very little return for the financial services industry so they very much encourage us all to use the likes of Laser. They like Laser because it's cheaper to operate and they can more readily charge you for the "convenience" of using it. As well as that, the feeling of actually spending money is dulled by using a card. This encourages overspending which puts people ina situation of debt where the bank can make money off people who fall behind on credit card payments. They can't do that when we use notes and cheques.

It's an interesting psychological fact about the plastic as opposed to the paper - we tend to be a bit more flaithúileach with the plastic alright. You'd think we'd have an idea of the money we have whether it's paper or plastic and spend according to that but we seem to work on the basis that having x savings and x credit is like having double your money ! For those who have only x credit they often seem to use it as if it were their savings and that's not good ... I'm aware of the "lots of month left at the end of the money" brigade and the incessant topping-up of loans and credit cards out of monthly earnings ... Bit of a drip-feed culture.

As a slight aside on details, I went for a Halifax Debit Card there recently and the statement I received from this morning states that interest is 21% on DR amounts I think I was originally impressed by their ads which said that interest was less than 10% .... thankfully I don't have a DR balance but I feel a bit duped now ...

In truth I didn't look very closely at the different types of account they have and am not overly worried about my own but isn't 21% way too excessive for a credit card if what you say above is true about the extra spend impulse associated with plastic? SSIAs*, as someone said there, could have been the creation of Charlie McCreevy in an attempt to pre-empt personal debt problems, which was very smart if he did it on purpose. Wouldn't another way be to cap interest rates or would that reduce business? I believe Poland regulated its lending by capping the amount of interest a bank can receive on a loan; might it be necessary to do this for a culture which might not be overly thrifty like we seem to be? (or a generation/class of us anyway)

*Special Savings Incentive Accounts - for the benefit of any foreigners who might be reading this. A five-year savings scheme introduced in the early 2000s by a Finance minister, Charlie McCreevy where for every €4 you saved, the government added another €1 to it which you only received if you saved for the 5 year term. The minimum you could save was €20 a month and the maximum €256. (feel free anyone to correct those figures as they're off the top of my head)

Auditor #9 wrote:

It's an interesting psychological fact about the plastic as opposed to the paper - we tend to be a bit more flaithúileach with the plastic alright. You'd think we'd have an idea of the money we have whether it's paper or plastic and spend according to that but we seem to work on the basis that having x savings and x credit is like having double your money ! For those who have only x credit they often seem to use it as if it were their savings and that's not good ... I'm aware of the "lots of month left at the end of the money" brigade and the incessant topping-up of loans and credit cards out of monthly earnings ... Bit of a drip-feed culture.

There is even a nastier side to this. Most banks actively promote the use of credit, sometimes with advertising campaigns such as ' Save Money with a Bank of Whatever Loan' or 'Have a holiday of a lifetime' or some such bollocks. They also increase credit limits if they see you repaying.

How in the name of god does taking out a loan to buy a heap of shite save you money? In my book it is almost false advertising.

The only way to save money is to not spend it.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

They also increase credit limits if they see you repaying.

They have a big database with bar-chart colours beside our names somewhere so they can pick out the potential slaves. Then they slowly boil you in heating water until before you know it, your holiday debt has become €6000 on your credit card. How many of us are going around with maxed-out credit cards? There doesn't seem to be a huge awareness either in the levels of interest people are paying back. There is actually a lot less interest shown by people in their own interest repayments than deserves to be; they should be looking out for their own interests more.

When you're maxed, you've no plastic to spend on the internet.