IC cards in Japan, like Pasmo and Suica, kind of work like this: originally intended for transit passes but also accepted at lots of retailers, usually for smaller purchases. You buy a card and load it with cash at a machine, no KYC required. It's really convenient and I'd happily use such a system in daily life in the West.

In theory correlating the card purchase with location or camera data would be possible, but even that's a win as it moves transaction surveillance from dragnet to bespoke.