Forget privacy if cash is killed
CASH, they would have us believe, is on its way out.
over the past ten years there’s been a monumental shift in the way we use money.
First came Chip and Pin, then online shopping and most recently tap-to-pay contactless cards that let you zip in and out of coffee shops, pubs and newsagents.
We’re bombarded with statistics from banking lobby groups that paint a bleak picture for coins and notes.
Take these: in 2006 cash accounted for around 45 pc of spending in shops. Today, it covers less than 25 pc — the remainder is electronic money on debit and credit cards.
The next stage of the revolution involves contactless cards and smartphones. You can now buy anything worth up to £30 — covering pretty much all everyday spending — by waving a piece of plastic over a reader.
These cards will gradually be replaced by mobile phones. Google and Apple already offer apps where you enter your bank details and the handset acts like a contactless credit card.
It’s no coincidence that banking industry lackeys bang on about cash being ‘dead within a decade’.
Privately, their bosses are in love with the idea of ditching cash. The more digital we go, the easier it is for big organisations to control the flow of money aroundfrom it. our society — and profit But there’s more to this than greed. As we reveal today on Pages 36 and 41, the death of cash poses a major threat to our privacy.
If cash disappears, every transaction, its time, place and the retailer involved, will be logged on to a computer somewhere. Apart from degrading our fierce British tradition of a right to privacy, this poses an enormous security risk.
The Metropolitan Police admits it’s losing the battle against online shopping fraudsters, with 1,000 people a day hit.
And sophisticated scammers are now routinely cajoling unwitting victims into transferring money to their accounts — and vanishing without a trace.
By collating a complete picture of our financial lives and putting it on file, banks are inviting attacks by criminal hackers like those who burst past TalkTalk’s
security last year. Cash is also vital because it’s reliable. Without it, I dread to think how we’ll cope with a major computer systems crash that locks people out of their accounts. Imagine the week- long account lockout suffered by RBS/ NatWest customers in June 2012 — but much, much worse. It may sound far- fetched but how would we cope with a power blackout caused by whimsical Russian and Saudi oligarchs meddling with the energy market? A cash safety net just seems like a sensible thing to keep going. I suspect that bank bosses will end up shooting themselves in the foot by killing off paper money. If we go fully digital, Google, Apple and Facebook could steal in and make High Street banks surplus to requirements. For all banks’ ills, we might be even worse off if ambitious internet startups gain full control over our money system.
Can we trust them to keep our salaries safe? Will they be on the end of the phone if our life savings disappear into the ether or the taxman says a payment went missing? I’m yet to be convinced.
Abysmal L&G
We All know a smart aleck. You’re in the middle of explaining a tricky situation and suddenly that voice butts in. ‘Well, what you need to do is . . .’
Usually it’s just a clumsy effort to help. But conversations can get heated when one friend starts lecturing another about a topic he or she knows little about.
That infuriating trait is a stain on insurer legal & General.
The way it treated Violeta Beaver (see Page 45) is abysmal. Her specialist cancer consultant says she has less than six months to live, but l&G decided its own experts knew better.
It point-blank refused to pay her £130,000 life insurance claim until Money Mail threw the book at it. But unlike a pal’s clumsy advice, l&G was toying with a patient’s precious final moments with her loved ones.
every day it delayed was another that Violeta and her husband Perry will never get back.
This isn’t the first time l&G has been caught wriggling out of legitimate life insurance claims from terminally ill customers.
last year we revealed how Michael Brown, a 68-year- old from Newark with a rare form of cancer, was similarly fobbed off.
l&G must learn its place. Yes, it must root out spurious claims, such as for whiplash that never actually occurred in a car accident. But it has no right to overrule experienced, specialist medical experts who’ve given someone the terrible news they’re going to die.
For insurers, a simple principle would go a long way in these situations: treat your customers as you’d hope to be treated yourself.
Dream on, George!
MoNeY Mail has been campaigning to stop George osborne raiding pensions in the Budget next month.
our fear is that the Chancellor will spin the reform as a giveaway to the lower-paid when in reality he’ll be hitting them in the pocket.
For the millions who earn less than £42,385 a year, the idea of saving for retirement is fanciful. You’ve just about scraped enough to pay the mortgage, bring up the kids and care for elderly parents every month — now you’re asked to find more money for retirement? Dream on, George!
offering basic-rate taxpayers a larger top-up only really helps if they’ve got more to put aside.
A better bet for the Treasury might be to boost the State pension higher than its new £155 level. That would avoid fiddling with tax refunds and perks — and stop investment firms getting their grubby hands on some of the cash, too.