lkn

28 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

You certainly have some major problems that are easily solved. 

Right, easily solved by just getting rid of the coins, i.e. paying by phone.

28 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

if it's raining and you don't have any cash, there's an ATM at nearly every 7-Eleven

Again, easily solved by having a wallet/payment app on your phone.

I don’t mind that some prefer paying with cash and carry around physical cash for “just incase” or going to ATMs, etc., but why do you have to insist that cash is easier than paying with your phone? It most certainly is not, that is just silly.

4 hours ago, lkn said:

They can’t print their way out of their debt, that is not how the system is set up.

Dug a little deeper… Bernstein knows full well how the current system works, but 6 years ago he opened up a dialog with proponents of MMT where he asked some questions about how their system would work in practice, e.g. how to “just raise taxes” to stop an overheating economy, etc.

It is now clear that the interview above is him being asked about how things work “under MMT”, a fringe theory he already has openly questioned, so of course he fumbles about why government even issues bonds when they can just print their own money, etc., as from his POV MMT is a half-baked theory.

I suggest reading his blog entry from 2018, that will put the interview in another perspective and show that he know full well how the U.S. monetary system works.

On 5/3/2024 at 12:27 AM, JensenZ said:

Are you serious? Having some coins in your pocket distresses you?

Not OP, but yes, coins are definitely annoying!

In a hot country like Thailand I generally wear thin trousers and a buttoned shirt, so limited pocket space where several coins add noticeable weight to the trousers, and when you also carry a caseless phone, you have to take notice not to put the phone in the pocket with your coins, as your phone may get scratched.

Furthermore, after having counted how many coins I have, e.g. if I want to buy something, I need to wash my hands before touching food again.

And of course there is just the nuisance of always making sure you have enough cash with you. When you go out, you don’t always plan for taking a taxi because it was raining, eating dinner at some restaurant because it got late, buying something in a store you hadn’t seen before, entering a museum, or what have you.

It really boggles the mind that “cash is king” people can’t see it is much more convenient not having to carry around bills and coins all the time, not having to make a budget each time you leave your home, not having to forego a snack because you didn’t bring enough cash with you, etc.

I am 100% cashless in Thailand (PromptPay + TrueWallet for 7-Eleven), and my home country (ApplePay), it is only when visiting countries that are still not entirely cashless (Japan and Taiwan comes to mind), that I am reminded of the hassle dealing with cash. I can tell you countless stories about issues we had wrt. cash on our travels, and of course also the annoying problem of not having too much excess cash when you leave the country — likewise, I can tell you just how big of a joy it was in e.g. Switzerland where we didn’t see a single Swiss franc on our entire trip: The pay toilet accepted ApplePay, all public transport, the vendor selling handwoven baskets at the market, etc.

Not just is this more convenient, but you also get a full record of everything you have bought, and nobody is shortchanging you.

On 5/1/2024 at 1:49 PM, Liverpool Lou said:

They have never allowed the use of any debit cards.

This is not true. It is only Thai debit cards that they do not accept, with the exception of UOB Bank, and for the same reasons as them refusing to accept PromptPay: They want to push Thai citizens toward TrueWallet or UOB Bank because of ownership stake.

Below are the payment methods accepted by 7-Eleven, here VISA, MasterCard, and UnionPay can be debit cards as well, as long as they were not issued by a Thai bank. Speaking as someone who has paid with both my Wise and Revolut debit card in a 7-Eleven.

On 5/1/2024 at 5:11 AM, george said:

Seems like foreign cards are frowned upon everywhere in the country now. What could be the reason?

Maybe related to VISA and MasterCard’s plan to increase their fees. This was reported last year and it said to be from October and April, so basically now.

On 4/30/2024 at 5:32 PM, Bountyhuntr said:

I think when I set mine up I had to contact them by phone as my application didn't get any attention for days.

Same thing happened to me. I applied, nothing happened. I asked at a True store, and they called customer support who said they would contact me within 24 hours.

On 5/1/2024 at 3:53 AM, Moonlover said:

Someone on this forum finally came up with the answer. You call yourself 'unemployed' (technically true) and you give your home address as your work address (a stretch but good enough) It worked and my account was approved in just a couple of hours. 

After I contacted True, they called me and told me to reapply, but to do exactly that: Declare myself unemployed and provide my home address as my business, and I was approved the same day.

He does look to fumble, but he also mentions MMT, which is Modern Monetary Policy, and a fringe theory, so it might be something in MMT he is asked to explain, that he does not follow.

Though his initial remark about governments not being able to go bankrupt because they print their own money is not how it works. The U.S. government borrows the money which are printed, that is why they have such huge debt, and they can default on paying interests (they came close a few years ago), which effectively would mean them going bankrupt.

They can’t print their way out of their debt, that is not how the system is set up.

18 hours ago, Highlandman said:

True cashless systems bypass the use of cash altogether; meaning QR codes that deduct money from your bank account or digital wallets that charge your bank account or debit or credit card. 

You can actually pay using PromptPay in the food courts I have visited (i.e. the QR code payment that deducts money from your bank account), I also believe they have supported various digital wallets like LINE Pay, and the Rabbit card (at least when I got my Rabbit card some ten years ago, I was told that it could be used in some food courts).

But I don’t think your definition of “cashless” is quite what people normally think of when saying cashless. Cashless means that you do not give physical cash to the vendor when paying for goods and services.

It doesn’t matter if the digital wallet or plastic card used for the payment is connected to your bank account or has been prepaid / topped up beforehand. As of such, my Thai bank account is really just a “prepaid wallet” that was topped up with Wise… oh… and my Wise debit card, is that cashless when I use it? Because I regularly have to top up my Wise account as well…

10 hours ago, Highlandman said:

You use cash to purchase a value stored card to make payment. Not exactly "cashless".

The question was “why would any vendor not accept cash”, and the answer is that for people serving food, there is a hygienic reason to not touch potentially dirty cash, and therefore many Thai food courts are literally cashless.

Yes, you can buy a prepaid card with cash, but you can also buy a prepaid VISA or MasterCard with cash, or maybe a gift card, so by that logic, it’s hard to find something truly cashless. But my point remains the same, there are good reasons for some vendors to refuse cash that the customer should also appreciate.

2 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

So it was my fault, got it. 

I did not say that. Seriously, you guys seem to just want to argue about everything.

4 minutes ago, itsari said:

I understand what you mean , to be honest I don't think any Thai government would see any advantage in chasing the people that do not file a tax return on fear of losing there vote.

And most likely, many of these vendors “who do not pay tax” do pay all sorts of other “fees” to the local authorities, that would far exceed their actual tax burden.

Truly a messed up system.

13 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

No, I never made that claim, you are confused, now apologize. 

Sorry, it was @Lorry that made that claim, where I asked for a source, and you replied, so I confused the two of you.

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

While there are a lot of great benefits, the understanding the potential for social engineering abuses does not make one a conspiracy theorist. 

You claimed that »They [“big brother”] are working hard on it [seeing all our transactions].«

Can you provide some sources for this? If not, it is conspiracy terretory.

36 minutes ago, itsari said:

It is estimated that 70 percent of traders in Thailand do not pay tax.

You don’t pay tax on the first 150,000 baht, and only 5% on the next 150,000 baht, so probably most traders don’t need to pay tax, or need to pay so little, that it is not worth pursuing.

Furthermore, I have transferred > 150,000 baht/year to a handful of different people, so just because this amount has been received in a bank account, does not mean it is taxable. Most older people in Thailand receive regular payments from their children, grandchildren, or nieces/nephews, and that actually is often done as electronic payments, though sometimes through a third party.

I doubt Thailand has the expertise to make sense of the data, if they actually did get access to all bank transactions.

31 minutes ago, Lorry said:

It's not easier at all to pay 10B parking fee with an app. Neither here nor in my home country. 

Then it is a bad implementation.

Have you tried to use a Rabbit Card with the BTS system in Bangkok? Japan has the same, but with the card on your phone, and it is just as fast, if not faster (because their doors are open by default, so you don’t have to wait for doors to open, only if your card is invalid, does the door close) — and you just put your phone above the sensor, no need to activate anything on your phone first.

Imagine you had to stop in order to put coins in the metro gates, it would be bonkers, so don’t claim digital payment is slower than cash, just because there are bad implementations of digital payments out there.

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

I am not talking about transaction fees, I am talking about the capital investment for the equipment required to accept a no-contact payment, at say a Home Depot or Walmart or some-such in the west. 

There are a zillion different solutions all with different cost structure, benefits, volume discounts, so no single answer.

The nice thing about the QR code is that even the grandmother selling bananas at the market can just get a QR code from their bank and start accepting digital payments free of charge and with no technology (on her part) involved. Only downside is that she doesn’t do proper verification of the payments, but who would cheat an old grandmother out of 20 baht by photoshopping fake confirmation screens?

And on that note, even a non-tech savvy grandmother may prefer accepting payments electronically, because leaving the market with a lot of cash does make a lot of people worry. In my own country, bus and taxi drivers were the first to get rid of cash, because they are easy victims.

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

Does the bank provide everything free of charge to the vendor? 

In Thailand it used to be that the bank would provide a business with a terminal free of charge, and that terminal would accept the bank’s debit cards free of charge, but have a fee for cards from other banks. That is why you see some shops have a dozen terminals, because they want to avoid the fee.

But I don’t know what the situation is today. I would almost assume that the banks have stepped out of the business of providing their own terminals, because debit cards never caught on in Thailand, and small vendors will just use PromptPay.

Larger vendors will invest in a terminal that accept many different payment types, for this, they will of course pay something, but I am quite sure that it is still cheaper than the cost of dealing with cash. And the cost of a payment terminal is only getting lower, as today, all you really need is a phone with an NFC chip to accept payment cards.

Also, I worked in a grocery store myself when I was younger, I don’t think you are aware of just how much overhead there is in counting cash at closing time, and carrying cash not just to and from the bank, but also to and from the store’s safety box. Not to mention that it’s much easier to give incorrect change with cash, although I have seen some modern stores today has a cash dispenser, so the cashier only have to type in the amount received, though such machine can’t be cheap either!

1 hour ago, Lorry said:

If you hand over cash,  there is no man in the middle. 

The staff is the “man in the middle” (between the customer and the shop owner).

We couldn’t even sell bottled water in my condo without this “man in the middle” (staff) pocketing some of the money.

That is why I introduced a cashless payment system in our building, and since then, we are no longer losing money selling bottled water.

Yes, in theory, someone can swap all the stores QR codes, but in practice, you are much more likely to have staff pocket money or just give back incorrect change.

Also, if you actually do manage to swap all the stores QR codes, how long until they find out, and police comes knocking at your door, as the new QR code will point to your bank account… you are just being silly here!

46 minutes ago, Lorry said:

Not yet.

They are working hard on it.

Going cashless is the first necessary step. 

Who is working on what exactly? Do you have any idea about the complexity of tracking all transactions across all payment rails?

Yes, governments would prefer us all to use digital payment systems, there are policy papers on this, highlighting all the advantages, and yes, cracking down on money laundering, tax evasion, and sending money to sanctioned groups, are among the many reasons, but this is not done by reporting all transactions to the government, instead each financial institution that accept money is tasked with doing the necessary KYC/AML procedures.

And as for the advantages, in EU a motivating factor has been to make payment easier and cheaper for both consumer and vendor, and thereby increase commercial activity (which leads to more jobs). They even publish the numbers for the studies they have performed.

But I guess for you, it’s all just one giant conspiracy…

19 hours ago, Highlandman said:

Why wouldn't vendors accept cash? This is Thailand! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Have you been to a food court in Thailand? They have been cashless for a decade or more.

This is probably about hygiene, you don’t want the person handling your food to also touch dirty cash.

In Taiwan I actually saw one shop that had a bowl with coins and instructed customers to “help themselves” (to change) when paying, as he did not want to touch these coins.

15 hours ago, Lorry said:

That's a VERY big disadvantage. 

It's not only income,  its expenses too - your whole economic life you send immediately to "the authorities".

In theory, yes, the “authorities” could map out your income and expenses, in practice though it can get very complicated.

For example in Thailand, I have 3 different bank accounts, and I also use both my Wise and Revolut cards (which Thai authorities can’t just subpoena to get bank statements).

So you have to collect statement from at least five entities, and adding to that, the actual bank statements in Thailand are absolutely terrible!

Many of my payments are just “Debit Card Spending” or it will be a payment to 2C2P, ร้านถุงเงิน, or to the shopping mall group (a lot of vendors in a mall apparently use payment infrastructure provided by the mall).

So yeah… in theory going 100% electronic, big brother can see all your expenses, but in practice the tech does not seem to be there.

5 hours ago, Everyman said:

The problem with being able to link a credit card to the Thai QR code payment system is that you could pay someone in cash using credit. Banks don’t want that because it creates a system where you would be paying the bank back with its own money.

I think this is a US-specific problem, “over there” credit card companies don’t like to have ways for consumers to get their credit converted into cash, because the consumer gets cashback for each transaction, so if the consumer finds a way to spend money and convert the “product” back into the same amount that was spent (e.g. buying dollar coins from the mint with credit card, buying gift cards, etc.) then they can do an arbitrage scheme where they are getting money from nothing.

I looked at one credit card company in Europe, and one of the advantages was free currency exchange and unlimited ATM withdrawals. So clearly this company is not concerned about this arbitrage scheme, as they do not give cashback.

5 hours ago, Everyman said:

There’s also the issue of who would pay the transaction fees.

I have a few banking services (e.g. Revolut) where I can add a card (from another bank) and then simply “top up” my account with the card that was added.

I don’t know if this is just because we have much lower interchange fees in Europe, so Revolut (and others) are willing to pay the fee, or if there actually is a way to get money from a card without a transaction fee.

For example, if I use my card to buy groceries, my card issuer earns a transaction fee (from the grocery shop). But if I withdraw cash from an ATM, my card issuer pays a fee to the ATM operator. So there are different transaction types with different fee structures.

On 4/24/2024 at 10:48 AM, Celsius said:

god forbid that anyone in Europe makes a profit. What kind of stupid law is this where card fees are capped way below 1% while credit card rewards are up to 5% on some cards. That's dumb

The law is there because the market was unfair for the merchants.

The merchant is not allowed to charge the fee to the consumer, so most consumers do not know about the payment card fee that the merchant has to pay, and definitely do not care.

On the contrary, if the consumer can pick between paying with a card that has 0% cashback or 3% cashback, guess what card they will use? But this cashback is taken directly from the merchant, which probably has to pay >5% for this transaction, compared to 0% had the consumer paid with cash, but VISA/MasterCard have crafted their agreements so that merchant must sell at same price, regardless of payment method.

And now that payment cards are ubiquitous, VISA and MasterCard can just raise their interchange fees as they like, because there is effectively no competition, and the consumer won’t care. Only merchants gets squeezed.

So that is why we had to pass this law. Personally though, I think it would have been better if the interchange fee was paid by the consumer, because then the consumer would suddenly have an interest in finding the card with the lowest (total) fees, and there would then be real competition between the various payment card providers in lowering their fees.

That is how capitalism is supposed to work!

On 4/25/2024 at 4:42 AM, digbeth said:

That's also why it doesn't work with Bangkok underground trains while physical cards are ok, when you tap in, it could present a unique number and not match when you tap out 

Using wallet app in other countries for public transport works fine, see e.g. Transport for London.

I think it is just yet another stupid policy move, like 7-Eleven not accepting PromptPay or Thai debit cards (except UOB).

On 4/25/2024 at 1:01 AM, MangoKorat said:

Surely all it does is complicate things and make it more difficult to keep track of things?

It makes it simpler, because you can have most of your cards always with you on the phone (a shame that Thai banks do not support ApplePay, likewise with Rabbit or the MRT card).

You can often also add your boarding pass, tickets, and other things to your “wallet app”, for example in Japan you can also add a travel card to your wallet app, top it up via the wallet app, and then just tap your phone when using public transport. They even have an “express mode” so you won’t have to activate your phone first, just put it near the sensor, and you’re done.

For payment cards though, the main advantage, apart from not having to bring the proper physical card with you is, that it never asks for PIN. A regular contactless payment card will ask for PIN either when amount is above a certain threshold, or if you haven’t used the PIN in a while.

On 4/24/2024 at 11:48 AM, george said:

7-Eleven Thailand only accept True Money app and credit cards (not debit cards) over a certain amount

They do accept debit cards, just not from Thai banks, with the exception of UOB.