My cash, My business

29 June 2021

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Many say we’re headed towards a cashless a society and most probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid at the thought. However, I had what I believe to be a disturbing epiphany, which may change your mind for good… 

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So, it was just like any other day, paying for snacks at my local, in the usual ‘tippity tap’ fashion that smart phones have us accustomed to. The subsequent notification - which is usually met with a routine swipe to dismiss without a second glance - was inadvertently opened, and it was at this moment the penny dropped. All my transactions in plain sight – they had access to everything.

Of course, I’m not alone in this. The big 3 mobile payment apps alone boast over 427 million users worldwide. For the sake of convenience, we’ve willingly handed over our unique spending habits, locations, and disposable income data without a second thought. 

Data hoarding
A report from Deloitte Germany claims that by 2030, data collection and analysis will become the basis of all future service offerings and business models. The sentiment is echoed by the Chinese government who see data as a “new factor of production”.

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This made me think, maybe we are too convinced that a cashless society is desirable. With all our data being harvested and repackaged to create further insights into our habits, would the abolition of physical currency be the end of true privacy and independent thought as we know it?


Far-fetched? 
I don’t mean to go all George Orwell on you, so I’ll provide further insight into my thought process. For those of us that drive, insurance brokers pre-judge us based on a range of factors including our jobs and commuting habits, before deciding if we will be quoted and how much for. Some will even require us to have telematics boxes fitted, tracking our every move. Yet we just accept because it is the ‘normal’.

Now, just imagine a similar approach is adopted based on a database of our complete spending habits. If you could be forced to explain yourself or refused an application, would you then spend based on what is deemed appropriate, rather than what you want?

From a perhaps bleaker perspective, Technology Attorney, Marta Belcher boldly claimed, “A cashless society is a surveillance society”. She referenced queues of Hong Kong protestors opting to use cash to pay for train tickets, as they feared the location disclosing element of contactless payments would leave them open to prosecution…  Many of us will be familiar with using contactless payments for public transport. Are we all a ‘terms and conditions’ update away from accepting a new ‘normal’?

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Cash is more than transactional. It’s much more than that. It’s the surprise I find in the jeans I haven’t worn in a month. It’s the gift I’m about to slip in the card (I bought two minutes ago) because I forgot it’s your birthday. It’s the tip I want to give the waiter without the restaurant taking a percentage.

It’s whatever I want to do with it (legally), without being judged. The freedom and spontaneity is what makes cash so great, and may it forever remain.

My cash, my business. 

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