Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

Re:Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly by philwelch on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @03:42AM (#23687657)

I’m sure it varies but the US has a bunch of annoying regulations meant to curb money laundering. For instance, if you deposit $10,000 or more at the bank, you are required to fill out annoying paperwork to prove you aren’t laundering money. If you don’t want to fill out annoying paperwork so you only deposit $9,000 at a time, that is literally a federal felony.

Maybe your city has a “safety of crowds” thing going on but when cash only businesses start going scarce, I bet the remaining holdouts start getting more and more scrutiny.

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Re:Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly by knorker on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:03AM (#23688145)

KYC (Know Your Customer) laws are not exactly unique to the US.

The money industry tends to be heavily regulated, and self-regulated (PCI DSS) for a reason. Crime happens there because that's literally where the money is.

I'm doing my part, though. I pay with cash whenever I can. In Germany that's easy (often the only option e.g. in restaurants). In Sweden, not so much. And then there are countries in between.

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Re:Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly by philwelch on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:26AM (#23688255)

Yeah, I don’t know how other countries differ from the US in this respect. Maybe the “war on drugs” made us paranoid about money laundering to the point where it eventually ground down the cash economy. Or maybe it really is our addiction to consumer debt.

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