The Grauniad picks up the idea of the cashless society, meanwhile last week Business Insider had this to say about Sweden:
Sweden is shaping up to be the first country to plunge its citizens into a fascinating — and terrifying — economic experiment: negative interest rates in a cashless society. The Swedish central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank, on Wednesday held its benchmark interest rate at -0.35%, the level it has been at since July.
Though retail banks have yet to pass that negative rate on to Swedish consumers, they face increased pressure to do so as long as the rates remain where they are. That's a problem, because Sweden is the closest country on the planet to becoming an all-electronic cashless society.
Remember, Sweden is the place where, if you use too much cash, banks call the police because they think you might be a terrorist or a criminal. Swedish banks have started removing cash ATMs from rural areas, annoying old people and farmers. Credit Suisse says the rule of thumb in Scandinavia is: ‘If you have to pay in cash, something is wrong.’
Brett Scott in the Guardian thinks the same might happen here:
"There is another – hidden – agenda though. If the only means of holding money is in the form of electronic bank deposits, a central bank can do something it cannot do with cash. It can set negative interest rates to erode people’s money in times of recession, making it costly to hoard it, and thereby theoretically stimulating economic activity. Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane recently said as much."
Cash is, in fact, a zero-interest loan from the citizenry to the Government. In times of high interest rates this is a good deal for the Government, but if interest rates go below zero, then it's the only money the creditors aren't paying the Government to borrow. If you have a lot of debt, then what better way to pay it down than to get your creditors to do the paying? To do that, though, you have to get rid of cash.
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