Can we really go cashless in Thailand?

[Anastasios]

Cashless is moronic, you have to type out the reasons to people who can't understand (still, in 2020 there are people who can't understand cashless is bad)

 

Cashless discriminates against those who have had the bad luck of getting indebted and broke, and unable to afford banking services or even outright denied due to their records.

 

Cashless discriminates against the disabled and the very young who are unable to think abstractly and realize the value of money without seeing it. This group of people is suspectible to fraud and theft.

 

Cashless discriminates against the old who due to their age can't use this type of technology well or can't remember passwords, I am a business owner and this is often a pain in the ass when grandma or Grandpa thought it was a good idea to not have cash.

 

Cashless means government and banks can control money supply with zero production cost and wreak havoc to our personal economy.

 

Cashless means government and banks can freeze our money at will as has been done in numerous countries, and by this I mean when they <deleted> up their job and are about to go bankrupt, not because you did anything criminal.

 

Cashless means government and banks can freeze our money at will without trial, with any sudden new law, whether you agree or not.

 

Cashless means we pay for extra services and fees, which means less money for us and more for the world's richest elites.

 

Worst of all, cashless is the voluntary enslavement, called taxation, for things the slave masters say you need, without declaring how much they need and for what. It's like, dude, you're going to your barber who lives almost a third world country lifestyle and you're feeling envy that he made some tax free earnings. 

[Anastasios]

 

10 minutes ago, Anastasios said:

Worst of all, cashless is the voluntary enslavement, called taxation, for things the slave masters say you need, without declaring how much they need and for what. It's like, dude, you're going to your barber who lives almost a third world country lifestyle and you're feeling envy that he made some tax free earnings. 

Correction. The worst of all is when in an event of a natural disaster, war etc the communication systems that digital payments rely on will be first to go down. Even with small weather events many areas lose this. Here in Sweden when this happens I <deleted> lose money. Grocery stores lose tons of money... Imagine having an enemy nation attacking these networks, it will bring the people down to it's knees. Yet still here I am in this moron country whos people let go of cash because they decided to call it convenient, I see people want to spread this to other societies...

[HaleySabai]

The buzz-word of the tech-age is 'convenience'. Young people are cultured around it en masse and will eventually, without question or clue,give up one of the last remaining liberties they have by allowing the governments and banks to impose a “cashless society” that would herd all citizens into a financial surveillance hub and eliminate their economic liberty. There’s no greater threat to liberty than the government electronically tracking your every transaction....just think about that.

 

The mantra in Thailand has always been; 'Cash is King'....at the grass-root level this will likely remain because the governments/banks won't completely eliminate cash below certain denominations. You just won't be able to accumulate,trade or move large no# of $ without a wheel barrel

Sure,there are practical advantages to the conveniences of plastic,pin or swiped money - forms of which have been around for a long time (credit cards et..) but the premise of the devious demise of cash itself should hope to be questioned,beyond the mindless preoccupation of everyday device.

I like convenience, like I used to like a plastic bag to carry my purchases away with, but now Im being convinced(forced) to comply to be without,or provide my own,all for the sake of a greater environmental good. Im well-nigh o.k with this because I understand and resonant with the value behind it. 

But there is just no amount of green-smoke nor Irish charm that any government/bank can use to persuade me that I will be somehow better off without cash in my pocket and happier paying a fee and being watched over for virtually every financial move I make. I do like cash more!

Long Live The king...Long Live Cash!!

[moobie]

Here in the UK the vast majority of my spending is cash based but I'm an old fogey in my 50's. I notice that most younger than this age all use cards for payments although there is often a minimum spend value where cards will not be accepted in some places.

 

For those thinking they can use cash everywhere I would suggest that they Google Spurs recently finished football ground. It is supposedly cashless. Even at pie and pint level. Card transactions also generate data which can also be sold on. And to be honest the brokers for such know nothing is really anonymous. (Here it should be noted that certain USA states have banned certain stores from being totally card based due to effectively barring the poor, etc.)

 

Most businesses over here in the UK prefer not to take cash even at fast food level. Banking of which causes insurance issues? On a personal barmaid level, one told me once card transactions were introduced into her Gastropub her tips basically stopped. Charities also took a hit as spare coppers were no longer dropped into the shop/bar charity boxes. Ditto, the homeless, buskers and others who relied on coins from passersby.

 

And with such thoughts in mind would naughty boys/girls in Thailand be willing to use cards on their entertainment? Or is there a danger of an emergence of China's Morality score creeping into everyone's daily life? I would imagine the providers of services would not be too keen. If the average Thai daily wage is approx. 375Baht I'm sure the Thai tax authorities would be most interested in someone earning a very good multiple of that amount!

But already cards are old tech. Some individuals are now chipped (grain of rice sized) in their hand to carry certain tasks without the burden of carrying cash or cards. Interesting times for sure.

[CH1961]

A piece of history for the cashless generation ????

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/28/cyprus-crisis-limits-bank-withdrawals

[Caldera]

Personally, I could go totally cashless in Bangkok. Between my Rabbit card, TrueMoney app, Grab and PromptPay QR code payments via K-Plus, there's almost nothing left that I need cash to pay for. A few street vendors that I use to buy from, but even among them accepting QR code payments is quite common already.

 

All that said, however, I "could" but I "don't". I still use cash quite a bit, more often than necessary.

[kokesaat]

Oh, the people who argued that newspapers would never go the way of the dinosaur, or who treasured their rolls of kodak film, or who still insist on buying their airline tickets from an agent, or refuse to give up their landline, or pine for the days of carburetors and distributor caps, or insist on using the teller at the bank because it's safer than using an atm.

Bills and coins will go the way of the dinosaur and the newer generations will wonder why we didn't do it sooner.

 

[CH1961]

9 hours ago, Caldera said:

there's almost nothing left that I need cash to pay for.

I tried all the cards, I have, in the slit, just ca$h released the fun I'm looking for ????

[HaleySabai]

10 hours ago, kokesaat said:

Oh, the people who argued that newspapers would never go the way of the dinosaur, or who treasured their rolls of kodak film, or who still insist on buying their airline tickets from an agent, or refuse to give up their landline, or pine for the days of carburetors and distributor caps, or insist on using the teller at the bank because it's safer than using an atm.

Bills and coins will go the way of the dinosaur and the newer generations will wonder why we didn't do it sooner.

 

Ya yes,progress...there have indeed been better-ments from tech, for example...8-track to cassette,vinyl to CD, DVD to Netflix et..et.....wunderbar!  The gest  to "cashless" cannot simply be related or reduced to the mundane "improvements" we all enjoy and have come to expect in everyday living. However,the decapitation of personal liberty through the demise of 'cash' is a very different premise.

The "newer generations" who will without doubt, be the ones willingly bending over to receive the butt-end of cashless-convenience will not stand to look back and wonder "why".... but wonder how.

Edited January 31, 2020 by HaleySabai

[Tounge Thaied]

2 hours ago, HaleySabai said:

The "newer generations" who will without doubt, be the ones willingly bending over to receive the butt-end of cashless-convenience will not stand to look back and wonder "why".... but wonder how.

Give a man a gun he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank he can rob the world.

Ever heard of Agenda 21? 
In a cashless grid like this one where everyone is tracked and traced at their every move and corporations are the only ones who “own” everything, there will be no real freedom to speak of... other than the illusion of choice which society has been trained to except as freedom.

 

[mike787]

Yes we can, only if we want to.

[orientalist]

I suppose if we were truly cashless it would be harder for a new coronavirus to spread since we wouldn't be touching money handled by strangers! ????

[ThaiBunny]

4 minutes ago, orientalist said:

I suppose if we were truly cashless it would be harder for a new coronavirus to spread since we wouldn't be touching money handled by strangers! ????

Indeed, all we'd have to worry about is the goods handled by the warehouse workers, the supermarket shelf-stackers and the checkout chicks

[lkn]

On 1/28/2020 at 6:30 PM, orientalist said:

If you have the Line Pay card you can pay for monthly passes via credit card but not for BTS card top-ups

Unclear if you know this, but you can link your physical BTS rabbit top-up card with your Line Pay account so that you can use it with a zero balance, and it will just withdraw from your Line Wallet (which in turn can be linked to a debit card / bank account).

 

So the end result is that each trip on the BTS is charged directly to your bank account, and you never have to refill your card.

 

[tjo o tjim]

I prefer credit cards, especially when I can tap with my watch. The Visa/Mastercard fees are way too high though for merchants, and the system is ripe for better solutions. But, the idea that the minimum credit card transaction is 400B at 7-11, or that you are charged 3-5% settling a bill at a resort for 20,000B just shows how far things need to improve in Thailand.  It will really come down to forcing everyone to be in the system, which has pros and cons. 
 

I do get nervous when I have less than $200 on me in cash though, even when 100% of my daily expenditures are on the card.

[orientalist]

17 hours ago, lkn said:

Unclear if you know this, but you can link your physical BTS rabbit top-up card with your Line Pay account so that you can use it with a zero balance, and it will just withdraw from your Line Wallet (which in turn can be linked to a debit card / bank account).

 

So the end result is that each trip on the BTS is charged directly to your bank account, and you never have to refill your card.

 

Yes, that works for single trip tickets, but then you pay 1 baht more for the trip. I prefer topping up my Rabbit card to save the one baht and to avoid queueing at the ticket machines.

[lkn]

1 hour ago, orientalist said:

Yes, that works for single trip tickets, but then you pay 1 baht more for the trip. I prefer topping up my Rabbit card to save the one baht and to avoid queueing at the ticket machines.

I think you misunderstand.

 

I still use my physical rabbit card, but it is linked to LINE Pay. When I use the physical Rabbit card, the amount is charged directly to my LINE wallet (which is linked to my bank account), and I *do* get the 1 baht discount for my trips, but I never have to top up my card or use any ticket machines.

 

Furthermore, I can buy ride passes for cheaper fares (from within LINE) and I also can see my ride history via my LINE wallet, which is how I just verified, that my last trip was 1 baht cheaper than the advertised price.

 

Also, when I first set this up, I got a few free ride passes, so my first four or so trips on the BTS were free of charge ????

[CH1961]

4 minutes ago, lkn said:

and I also can see my ride history

* very important ????

 

5 minutes ago, lkn said:

get the 1 baht discount

* what a revelation ????

[lkn]

3 hours ago, tjo o tjim said:

I prefer credit cards, especially when I can tap with my watch. The Visa/Mastercard fees are way too high though for merchants, and the system is ripe for better solutions. But, the idea that the minimum credit card transaction is 400B at 7-11, or that you are charged 3-5% settling a bill at a resort for 20,000B just shows how far things need to improve in Thailand

Fully agree, contact less payments are so nice, especially when they can be done via your watch.

 

And also, I hate credit/debit card fees, VISA/MasterCard are really exploiting their duopoly, taking a significant cut of merchants’ revenue.

 

The reason why I comment is that you write “things need to improve in Thailand”: Thailand actually just expose how expensive it is to pay with VISA/MasterCard (compared to e.g. your bank’s debit card), but in many other countries, VISA/MasterCard have ensured that the fees they charge are not exposed to the customer (via the agreement that the merchant has to sign in order to accept their cards), and worse, they are incentivising customers to use VISA/MasterCard (over the cheaper debit card) by introducing kickbacks, miles, points, etc.

 

You can be sure as hell that when MasterCard rewards you with a 1.5% cashback on all your purchases, it’s because the merchant is paying more than 1.5% in transaction fees.

 

Most places in Thailand, you can pay with a debit card, and there is no transaction fee. But if you pay with a foreign VISA/MasterCard, they charge you 3%.

 

I think that is actually how it should be everywhere, because when e.g. in the U.S. there is no on-top transaction fee, it just means that when I pay with my debit card, and you pay with your 1.5% cashback MasterCard, I am paying more than I should for the goods to support your card supplier’s fees and your 1.5% cashback.

 

[orientalist]

3 hours ago, lkn said:

I think you misunderstand.

 

I still use my physical rabbit card, but it is linked to LINE Pay. When I use the physical Rabbit card, the amount is charged directly to my LINE wallet (which is linked to my bank account), and I *do* get the 1 baht discount for my trips, but I never have to top up my card or use any ticket machines.

 

Furthermore, I can buy ride passes for cheaper fares (from within LINE) and I also can see my ride history via my LINE wallet, which is how I just verified, that my last trip was 1 baht cheaper than the advertised price.

 

Also, when I first set this up, I got a few free ride passes, so my first four or so trips on the BTS were free of charge ????

Ok, I get it now. It doesnt work for me because my Line wallet is connected to credit cards rather than a bank account or debit card. I can buy a pass with the linked CC but I can't use it to debit the physical card going through the turnstiles. I'll give it a try. Thanks. 

[orientalist]

Seems like Covid 19 and future Corona viruses is a good reason to go cashless and cardless!