National Irish Bank Moves to Cashless Banking (Not The Onion)

December 29th, 2009

What if you want more cash than whatever pissant amount they allow you to remove from the ATM each day? Oh, I almost forgot, only criminals need that much cash.

Via: Irish Times:

IT MIGHT sound like a contradiction in terms, but for the first time one of the main Irish consumer banks is moving to cashless banking in all its branches.

National Irish Bank has written to thousands of its customers this month informing them of a “new style of banking” in which branches will not handle over-the-counter cash transactions.

The letter says branches will no longer handle cash withdrawals and lodgements, night safe lodgements and foreign currency cash. Branches will continue to lodge cheques, drafts and postal orders and issue drafts.

Customers are advised to obtain cash from “ATMs nationwide” or to seek “cash-back” on their debit cards.

A spokesman confirmed that cashless banking was being introduced across the entire NIB branch network over the next 18 months, and had already been introduced successfully in a number of branches.

One Response to “National Irish Bank Moves to Cashless Banking (Not The Onion)”

  1. JWSmythe says:

    When cash is outlawed, only outlaws will have cash.

    This does not make an impossible situation quite yet, since there are other routes to get a negotiable paper (money order, etc). But, if those other routes should become unavailable, it will be bad.

    Since the bank won’t handle cash, how to merchants process their cash income? Any merchant dealing exclusively with the National Irish Bank will be forced to refuse cash transactions, or consider those “under the table” transactions, which will never end up as a bank deposit.

    Wasn’t the banking system established so people wouldn’t possess large quantities of cash?

    I just did a little research. There are traces of banking practices back to about 300BC. It died off for a period, and was resurrected around the time that the Knights Templar got into the business.

    From the Wiki page “History of banking”, regarding the Knights Templar.

    “their practice was to take in local currency, for which a demand note would be given that would be good at any of their castles across Europe, allowing movement of money without the usual risk of robbery while traveling.”

    This sounds like a very bad thing to happen. You no longer have the luxury of collecting cash from one bank, and opening an account at another. Of course, they could issue you a cashiers check (or something similar) to be redeemed elsewhere. I barely and rarely trust banks to do the “right thing”. To me, they are simply a clearing house for paychecks. It’s just about impossible to get paid in cash from an employer. What if I don’t want to deal in electronic transactions? What if I don’t want a record that I bought something. I don’t do anything nefarious, but a purchase may be an obvious clue to a gift that I wished to purchase.

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