Newsgroup: italia.genova.discussioni
Titolo: [OT] La Svezia si prepara ad abbandonare il contante

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/74882-sweden-cashing-out-cash
 
 
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Sweden was the first European country to introduce 
bank notes in 1661. Now it’s come farther than most on the path toward 
getting rid of them.
 
"I can’t see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore," says 
Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970s pop group ABBA, and a vocal 
proponent for a world without cash.
 
The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this 
high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over 
digital money.
 
In most Swedish cities, public buses don’t accept cash; tickets are 
prepaid or purchased with a cellphone text message. A small but growing 
number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which 
make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash 
altogether.
 
"There are towns where it isn’t at all possible anymore to enter a bank 
and use cash," complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden’s National 
Pensioners’ Organization.
 
He says that’s a problem for elderly people in rural areas who don’t 
have credit cards or don’t know how to use them to withdraw cash.
 
The decline of cash is noticeable even in houses of worship, like the 
Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, where Vicar Johan 
Tyrberg recently installed a card reader to make it easier for 
worshippers to make offerings.
 
"People came up to me several times and said they didn’t have cash but 
would still like to donate money," Tyrberg says.
 
Bills and coins represent only three per cent of Sweden’s economy, 
compared to an average of nine per cent in the eurozone and seven per 
cent in the U.S., according to the Bank for International Settlements, 
an umbrella organization for the world’s central banks.
 
Three per cent is still too much if you ask Ulvaeus. A cashless society 
may seem like an odd cause for someone who made a fortune on Money, 
Money, Money and other ABBA hits, but for Ulvaeus it’s a matter of 
security.
 
After his son was robbed for the third time he started advocating a 
faster transition to a fully digital economy, if only to make life 
harder for thieves.
 
"If there were no cash, what would they do?" says Ulvaeus, 66.
 
The Swedish Bankers’ Association says the shrinkage of the cash economy 
is already making an impact in crime statistics.
 
The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 
in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years 
ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down.
 
"Less cash in circulation makes things safer, both for the staff that 
handle cash, but also of course for the public," says Par Karlsson, a 
security expert at the organization.
 
The prevalence of electronic transactions — and the digital trail they 
generate — also helps explain why Sweden has less of a problem with 
graft than countries with a stronger cash culture, such as Italy or 
Greece, says economics professor Friedrich Schneider of the Johannes 
Kepler University in Austria.
 
"If people use more cards, they are less involved in shadow economy 
activities," says Schneider, an expert on underground economies.
 
In Italy — where cash has been a common means of avoiding value-added 
tax and hiding profits from the taxman — Prime Minister Mario Monti in 
December put forward measures to limit cash transactions to payments 
under 1,000 euros ($1,300), down from 2,500 euros.
 
The flip side is the risk of cybercrimes. According to the Swedish 
National Council for Crime Prevention, the number of computerized fraud 
cases, including skimming, surged to nearly 20,000 in 2011 from 3,304 
in 2000.
 
Oscar Swartz, the founder of Sweden’s first Internet provider, Banhof, 
says a digital economy also raises privacy issues because of the 
electronic trail of transactions. He supports the idea of phasing out 
cash, but says other anonymous payment methods need to be introduced 
instead.
 
"One should be able to send money and donate money to different 
organizations without being traced every time," he says.
 
It’s no surprise that Sweden and other Nordic countries are at the 
forefront of this development, given their emphasis on technology and 
innovation.
 
For the second year in a row, Sweden ranked first in the Global 
Information Technology Report released at the World Economic Forum in 
January. The Economist Intelligence Unit also put Sweden top of its 
latest digital economy rankings, in 2010. Both rankings measure how far 
countries have come in integrating information and communication 
technologies in their economies.
 
Internet startups in Sweden and elsewhere are now hard at work 
developing payment and banking services for smartphones.
 
Swedish company iZettel has developed a device for small traders, 
similar to Square in the U.S., that plugs into the back of an iPhone to 
make it work like a credit card terminal. Sweden’s biggest banks are 
expected to launch a joint service later this year that allows 
customers to transfer money between each other’s accounts in real-time 
with their cellphones.
 
Most experts don’t expect cash to disappear anytime soon, but that its 
proportion of the economy will continue to decline as such payment 
options become available. Before retiring as deputy governor of 
Sweden’s central bank, Lars Nyberg said last year that cash will 
survive "like the crocodile, even though it may be forced to see its 
habitat gradually cut back."
 
Andrea Wramfelt, whose bowling alley in the southern city of Landskrona 
stopped accepting cash in 2010, makes a bolder prediction: She believes 
coins and notes will cease to exist in Sweden within 20 years.
 
"Personally I think this is what people should expect in the future," 
she says.
 
But there are pockets of resistance. Hanna Celik, whose family owns a 
newspaper kiosk in a Stockholm shopping mall, says the digital economy 
is all about banks seeking bigger earnings.
 
Celik says he gets charged about five Swedish kronor ($0.80) for every 
credit card transaction, and a law passed by the Swedish Parliament 
prevents him from passing on that charge to consumers.
 
"That stinks," he says. "For them (the banks), this is a very good way 
to earn a lot of money, that’s what it’s all about. They make huge 
profits."
 
-- 
 
Consigli per gli acquisti:
http://shop.ebay.it/merchant/enraz
 
 
 

 
http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/74882-sweden-cashing-out-cash
 
 
Nella realtà, come scrissi qualche tempo fa sul mio blog, sono sempre più i
locali che espongono il cartello "niente carte, solo contanti". 
Succede soprattutto con pub, locali da ballo, birrerie... Alcuni hanno
messo un bancomat all'interno del locale. 
 
Daniele
 
 
 
-- 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele1974/
 
http://unitalianoinsvezia.com
 

 messo un bancomat all'interno del locale.
 
Per quale motivo? Per le commissioni bancarie?


 Per quale motivo? Per le commissioni bancarie?
 
Si, un annetto fa il parlamento ha escluso la possibilità di rigirarle,
anche solo in parte, sui clienti, e pare anche che siano aumentate. 
 
Soprattutto per i locali che vendono birra e alcolici, su cui già ci sono
accise elevate, pare che sia stata una discreta botta. 


 
 
O per non dover rilasciare scontrini...

 O per non dover rilasciare scontrini...
 
Qui li rilasciano. 
Fra l'altro, il consumo di alcool è molto controllato: ci fossero delle
discrepanze fra l'acquistato e il venduto salterebbero subito all'occhio. 
