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What's better than cash? More cash!

November 12, 2013 by Ron Delnevo — Chairman, Cash and Card World

A new entity is currently taking shape. And this creation has an odd name: "The Better Than Cash Alliance."

Why do I call it "odd"? Simply because few people believe anything is better than cash as a payment method. This is evidenced by the fact that more than 80 percent of all transactions carried out on Earth are carried out using cash.

So which organizations are funding this lost-cause alliance?

Well, as you would expect, the "usual suspects" are playing a significant role. Yes, that's right. Visa and MasterCard will be pumping some of their hard-earned (ha!) merchant service fee revenue into this vain effort.

More surprisingly, the Ford Foundation is also apparently stumping up some money. Why this hitherto respected body should enter the field with the Terrible Plastic Twins is beyond me. Perhaps, like Henry Ford, they want to see public choice restricted? ("Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black," is one of Henry's more memorable quotes.)

Anyway, the funds put up by the various alliance members will be used to power a massive worldwide PR campaign from Q1 2014 onward. This will be aimed at persuading governments to ruin their countries’ economies by making them cashless.

I suppose I should have stated "current governments" because I can't imagine any such body surviving the next election on a cashless platform. They would be ushered out of office faster than a contactless transaction can be processed!

There are of course nations where Governments do not rely on the democratic process for their survival. I suppose it is possible that army officers or ex-Secret Service types in control of such countries may find a cashless society an attractive prospect. After all, they can switch off cards any time they want, effectively rendering an individual a "non-person," especially if the card in question is also an identity card, driver’s license and passport.

I am sure that charitable foundations would not set out to support totalitarian regimes, but that could certainly be the unintended outcome of funding this strange alliance.

The sad aspect of all of this is that money wasted in this way would be better employed in funding humanitarian aid. With more than 5 billion of our fellow human beings surviving on less than $10 a day, a plastic card is the last thing they require to improve their living standards.

They need more cash to give them more control of their lives right now, not credit card bills at the end of the month!

About Ron Delnevo

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