Portugal Joins Spain, France in Cash Crackdown

[alyssa85]

http://www.allcryptocurrencies.news/all-crypto-currencies/portugal-joins-spain-france-in-cash-crackdown-bitcoin-will-benefit/

Portugal is the latest country to close the net on cash.

Portugal has banned cash payments over -euro;3000 as part of a crackdown on anonymous payments.

A new package of rules which came into force Aug. 23 makes payments over the limit punishable by a fine of up to -euro;9000.

Spain, meanwhile, cut the maximum permitted cash transaction from a -euro;2500 limit set in 2012 to just -euro;1000, itself moving in line with France.

Any Portuguese, Spanish or French people on here to shed light as to how people are reacting to this? Are they moving to Bitcoin, or are they indifferent?

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[talesfromthecrypt]

it does not make a big difference here in France for people doing regular business, it's just a move in a bad direction , we will develop crypto use as a reaction

regarding illegal activities , it might force villains using different methods , but they'll adapt and maybe use cryptos too

[StockBet.com]

As governments' spending continue to go up, their debts will continue to go up.

As governments' debts continue to go up, their taxes will continue to go up.

As governments' taxes continue to go up, cash payments will continue to go up.

As cash payments continue to go up, government crackdown will continue to go up.

As government crackdown continue to go up, crypto buyers will continue to go up.

[neurotypical]

http://www.allcryptocurrencies.news/all-crypto-currencies/portugal-joins-spain-france-in-cash-crackdown-bitcoin-will-benefit/

Portugal is the latest country to close the net on cash.

Portugal has banned cash payments over -euro;3000 as part of a crackdown on anonymous payments.

A new package of rules which came into force Aug. 23 makes payments over the limit punishable by a fine of up to -euro;9000.

Spain, meanwhile, cut the maximum permitted cash transaction from a -euro;2500 limit set in 2012 to just -euro;1000, itself moving in line with France.

Any Portuguese, Spanish or French people on here to shed light as to how people are reacting to this? Are they moving to Bitcoin, or are they indifferent?

What does this mean exactly? that you can't pay in paper cash higher than 1000 in France and Spain?

So if you want to buy something in a shop that costs more than 1000 with cash, you can't and you must use a credit card? Well that sucks.

Anyway, paper money is going away in 10 to 20 years, so get crypto, as much as you can, specially Bitcoin, and hold it, then watch yourself get rich as the people that didn't do their homework get fucked. This is our chance to get rich and we will get rich.

[alyssa85]

http://www.allcryptocurrencies.news/all-crypto-currencies/portugal-joins-spain-france-in-cash-crackdown-bitcoin-will-benefit/

Portugal is the latest country to close the net on cash.

Portugal has banned cash payments over -euro;3000 as part of a crackdown on anonymous payments.

A new package of rules which came into force Aug. 23 makes payments over the limit punishable by a fine of up to -euro;9000.

Spain, meanwhile, cut the maximum permitted cash transaction from a -euro;2500 limit set in 2012 to just -euro;1000, itself moving in line with France.

Any Portuguese, Spanish or French people on here to shed light as to how people are reacting to this? Are they moving to Bitcoin, or are they indifferent?

What does this mean exactly? that you can't pay in paper cash higher than 1000 in France and Spain?

So if you want to buy something in a shop that costs more than 1000 with cash, you can't and you must use a credit card? Well that sucks.

Anyway, paper money is going away in 10 to 20 years, so get crypto, as much as you can, specially Bitcoin, and hold it, then watch yourself get rich as the people that didn't do their homework get fucked. This is our chance to get rich and we will get rich.

Yup.

It's interesting that ordinary people don't seem to be reacting to this at all

Also - I found this interesting article from 2016:

https://www.ft.com/content/e979d096-5fe3-11e6-b38c-7b39cbb1138a

The idea of keeping piles of cash in high security vaults may sound like something from an old movie plot, but some banks and insurers have recently started considering the idea as interest rates sink below zero across much of Europe.

Europe’s highways are not yet jammed with heavily guarded trucks transporting money to top-secret locations, but if it becomes financially sensible for banks to hoard cash as rates are cut even further, the practice could undermine central banks’ ability to use negative rates to boost growth.

After the European Central Bank’s most recent rate cut in March, private-sector banks are paying what amounts to an annual levy of 0.4 per cent on most of the funds they keep at the eurozone’s 19 national central banks. This policy, which has cost banks around €2.64bn since ECB rates became negative in 2014, is intended to spark economic growth by giving banks the incentive to lend money out to businesses instead of holding on to it.

Private bankers and insurers are already thinking of creative ways to avoid those charges altogether.

One way is by turning the electronic money they keep at central banks into cold, hard cash. Munich Re has experimented successfully with storing a double-digit million sum of euros in cash at what the insurer describes as a manageable cost. A few other German banks, including Commerzbank, the country’s second-biggest lender, have also considered taking the step. But when a Swiss pension fund attempted to withdraw a large sum of money from its bank in order to store it in a vault, the bank refused to provide the cash, according to local media reports.

If this practice becomes widespread, it would have big economic implications. If banks are not paying central bank interest charges, then they will not be as affected by further official interest rate cuts. They therefore would not be spurred to lend out more money.

So it's possible that this is all aimed at the BANKS. Phase out cash, and they can't avoid negative interest rates by keeping their cash in a vault.

[Golftech]

http://www.allcryptocurrencies.news/all-crypto-currencies/portugal-joins-spain-france-in-cash-crackdown-bitcoin-will-benefit/

Portugal is the latest country to close the net on cash.

Portugal has banned cash payments over -euro;3000 as part of a crackdown on anonymous payments.

A new package of rules which came into force Aug. 23 makes payments over the limit punishable by a fine of up to -euro;9000.

Spain, meanwhile, cut the maximum permitted cash transaction from a -euro;2500 limit set in 2012 to just -euro;1000, itself moving in line with France.

Any Portuguese, Spanish or French people on here to shed light as to how people are reacting to this? Are they moving to Bitcoin, or are they indifferent?

What does this mean exactly? that you can't pay in paper cash higher than 1000 in France and Spain?

So if you want to buy something in a shop that costs more than 1000 with cash, you can't and you must use a credit card? Well that sucks.

Anyway, paper money is going away in 10 to 20 years, so get crypto, as much as you can, specially Bitcoin, and hold it, then watch yourself get rich as the people that didn't do their homework get fucked. This is our chance to get rich and we will get rich.

that's the idea if they will continue doing this and they wont allow people to use their paper fiat for sure they will find another ways and crypto / bitcoin
would be a good decision instead of credit card where you needed to pay each year for maintaining the card while bitcoin do have a big future ahead and they can use it as investment too.

[Kprawn]

These governments wants to assist banks to increase the chances to have a cashless society. What does this mean... Well this

means "zero" anonymous transactions and extra transaction fees for the banks. They will think of some fancy excuse for their

actions, but that is just BS to sell this idea to the public. A cashless society will give a police state full control over your

personal finance and private financial data.  

[LeGaulois]

[
Yup.

It's interesting that ordinary people don't seem to be reacting to this at all

Because we rarely buy something over 1000€ that's why. It happens when we buy a car or something like that, but you don't buy a car every week. You can say what about clothes for example? Then I will tell you, do you think the average citizen spends over 1000€ in clothes while in France, for example, it's near 1 month salary, about 2 in Portugal.
France is the country who is the most credit cards in Europe, who is interested to walk with 1000€ in his pocket.

[hatshepsut93]

I don't think that the global crackdown on cash will help Bitcoin. Governments are doing this to grab even more control over financial system - cash is hard to trace, it's hard to mute and reverse transactions and even hard to find it. Digital centralized money is very convenient for governments, as they can easily check balances, seize funds, tax and block transactions. There's a common argument that people will move to crypto because of cash restrictions, but governments might just start restricting it for the same reason they restrict cash. This can dramatically hurt adoption, as most people are trying to abide with the laws.

[manselr]

The main value proposition of Bitcoin is to store your wealth on it and watch it go up as shit like this goes down.

Bitcoin doesn't need any other fancy features, it's ok as it is. The killer app is to store your wealth, get some popcorn and watch it moon.

[Nathan047]

Does this not scare anyone? If we're not even allowed to posses cash then I think the government’s gone to far. I’m glad to see here in the US we are lagging behind in the whole global “war on cash,”  but I’m worried it won’t take long to catch up.

[olushakes]

Countries all over the world are taking such steps gradually all in the quest to track virtually under the guise of security measures but in actual fact it's to have absolute control and even over how you spend your money that you earn legitimately. However, this will quickly be effected in the advanced counties because the system is already in place compared to others like third world countries whose liberalisation is still guaranteed.

[HabBear]

First, this doesn't apply to Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't cash AND how can any country restrict who you're sending something to online? Are they going to regulate email and forum posts too?

Second, the law is flawed. If I want to pay cash for something over 3000euro I could just arrange installment payments...I'll pay you half (or whatever denomination under 3000euro) today, another installment tomorrow or next week and so on.

How could they police this shit?

Such a silly law.

[bitart]

Yup.

It's interesting that ordinary people don't seem to be reacting to this at all

Also - I found this interesting article from 2016:

https://www.ft.com/content/e979d096-5fe3-11e6-b38c-7b39cbb1138a

The idea of keeping piles of cash in high security vaults may sound like something from an old movie plot, but some banks and insurers have recently started considering the idea as interest rates sink below zero across much of Europe.

Europe’s highways are not yet jammed with heavily guarded trucks transporting money to top-secret locations, but if it becomes financially sensible for banks to hoard cash as rates are cut even further, the practice could undermine central banks’ ability to use negative rates to boost growth.

After the European Central Bank’s most recent rate cut in March, private-sector banks are paying what amounts to an annual levy of 0.4 per cent on most of the funds they keep at the eurozone’s 19 national central banks. This policy, which has cost banks around €2.64bn since ECB rates became negative in 2014, is intended to spark economic growth by giving banks the incentive to lend money out to businesses instead of holding on to it.

Private bankers and insurers are already thinking of creative ways to avoid those charges altogether.

One way is by turning the electronic money they keep at central banks into cold, hard cash. Munich Re has experimented successfully with storing a double-digit million sum of euros in cash at what the insurer describes as a manageable cost. A few other German banks, including Commerzbank, the country’s second-biggest lender, have also considered taking the step. But when a Swiss pension fund attempted to withdraw a large sum of money from its bank in order to store it in a vault, the bank refused to provide the cash, according to local media reports.

If this practice becomes widespread, it would have big economic implications. If banks are not paying central bank interest charges, then they will not be as affected by further official interest rate cuts. They therefore would not be spurred to lend out more money.

So it's possible that this is all aimed at the BANKS. Phase out cash, and they can't avoid negative interest rates by keeping their cash in a vault.

Interesting that banks can hold such amount of cash in their vault, and you as an everyday person cannot deposit cash into the bank's safe box, because it's not allowed and you can only store gold, jewellery, etc, but not cash... People are also affected by the negative interest rate, so they need to think about investing their money into something, if they want to gain some interest...

[Slark]

This is only the beginning of outlawing cash money. It is happening all over the world - not so long ago in India governments scraped 500 and 1000 rupees bank notes.
European law will be more sophisticated, they simply impose transaction limits for fiat money. Governments know that it is the only way to curb 'illegal' transactions.
And by illegal they think any kind of money transfer where people are not paying taxes or some kind of fees.

[Sadsong]

Hate how most the world moves as one in these situations, it always points to shit going on behind the scene.
Most likely crypto is next once they sort out how to make us bend over backwards for putting our money anywhere.

[PauloLuks]

Is indifferent. In portugal only the big fish cares about this, but even those ones certainly can find other alternatives.
It's also a bit dangerous carry so much money.

[HeRetiK]

[...]

Second, the law is flawed. If I want to pay cash for something over 3000euro I could just arrange installment payments...I'll pay you half (or whatever denomination under 3000euro) today, another installment tomorrow or next week and so on.

How could they police this shit?

Such a silly law.

Good luck trying to find a merchant willing to do this. And if you have to pay a large sum, say EUR 10k,-, it will take you a lot of roundtrips until you have paid off each installment.

They know that there are ways to move around laws like this. They are just trying to make using cash as inconvenient as possible, to nudge consumers towards payments they can more easily track, ie. credit and debit card payments.