More and more Belgians excluded from banking services

24 comments

1. One thing I find especially concerning is just how easily banks can block your account. The office didn’t mail a piece of paperwork for me to the head office about a year ago, and i got completely locked out of my account. How is that okay? How i am ever responsible for not having information collected, and how is preventing me from accessing my money the correct response? To add insult to injury it was a Friday they locked it, call center couldn’t unlock it, so no money over the weekend. If I didn’t have a credit card, i literally would have starved. You shouldn’t need to have 3 different payment methods just in case one of them randomly decides you’re non-compliant in something.

2. Zit in die twee miljoen alle minderjarigen die nog geen bankrekening hebben?

3. The financial sector is on its way to be fully automised. There is very little in their whole business that cannot be done better, cheaper and more secure by computers using todays available technology.

   Cash use is difficult and expensive, so obviously banks want to minimise it or get rid of it entirely, but it’s ultimately not the banks who are in charge of paper money.

4. You’re conflating things.
   First off – access to your bank account. Your balance has been nothing but some numbers on a sheet or pc since the middle ages. Banks closing access to that account will always be problematic. The fact that it’s digital is irrelevant.
   Two – but the government can see what you do. Sure, but that has been true ever since most people were paid onto a bank account instead of in cash in hands. There were limits on how much you can get from cash machines, etc. This isn’t new.
   Three – if you don’t have the means for digital, then you probably don’t have a lot of need for banks to begin with.
   Four – but what about the people that can’t pay digital. if you’re paying everything with cash, you’re most likely not going to go to the bank for 50€ either, you’ll need more. Just take out more, it’s really not that hard.

    

   This sounds like “not your key, not your money” kind of bullshit.
   What’s the alternative? Getting all your money and putting it under your matress?

5. I started using cash as much as possible because i also dislike the idea of a totally cashless future… if everyone starts using as much cash as possible maybe at least the shutdown of atm´s will slow down ?

6. Couldn’t agree more. An error by my bank made me lose access to my bank account for several weeks. Not fun. Cashless society is scary.
   Banks + government have complete control over all other people in a cashless society. If you don’t agree with something, they can block your bank accounts and you stop existing. Without access to money you are as good as dead. Friends can’t even borrow you some money, because cash is extinct and your accounts are blocked so sending you some money isn’t possible. You are one push of a button away from dying from starvation in a cashless society.
   You don’t want to fight in our war? -> your bank accounts gets blocked. You don’t agree with paying even more taxes? -> your bank accounts get blocked. What do you mean the government is corrupt? -> your bank accounts get blocked.

7. I don’t get certain people’s vendetta against physical money everytime the discussion comes up. Being able to pay digitally is great, and I use it often. But what’s the issue with being able to do both? If you want digital only you can, but if you do like to use cash for certain situations, you should still be able to.

   In any case, I felt the decrease in atm’s quite hard. Where I used to have several in my vicinity, nowadays I have to take a pretty long detour to be able to withdraw money, and I live in a city. It has become a pretty big inconvenience.

8. Man this is the third time ive seen you post about stuff on this subreddit this year

9. Look into Monero. It’s the antidote to CBDC’s.

10. Interesting.
    I don’t like cash or physical cards because it’s not practical.
    But I have different digital bankcards and banks and some crypto for emergencies.
    I feel like it solves a lot of the issues with the cashless system.

    People who are selling recurrently drugs will have to come up with a pretty creative solution though.

    Also people without papers will always have to depend on someone else to use their digital payment. it will make them even more vulnerable for exploitation.

11. All my accounts got blocked because I was born in the USA, my parents are Belgian, were working there as expats for couple years when I was born, never had USA passport, always only had Belgium Nationality, but because of some new USA rules that bank had to report bank details and transaction information of anybody who might possible by an USA citizen, many bank didn’t want to deal with the hassle and just closed my account. Over 10.000 ppl in Belgium have same issue. So yea bank can close your bank accounts one day to the next and your screwed, can’t image if we lived in a even less cash dependent society.

12. Cue the hordes of people thinking a cashless society isn’t a problem because they think it doesn’t change anything to them.

13. Lots of upvotes from tax cheats, and crimnals wish to launder their dirty money. Both categories hate the idea of going cashless.

14. Someone seems to have forgotten that physical silver & gold still exist.

15. Well that’s their goal getting rid off cash money. No more black labor possible and if you wanna sell your stuff second hand to someone else you will be taxed on it since everything will be digitalized and traceable.

    I remember when people laughed at people when they said that they are going to try to remove cash money, this is exactly what is about to happen right now.

16. I really don’t care about physical money as I don’t see a reason to use it if you have nothing to hide.

    Physical and digital can co-exist, as long as both are always accepted.

17. > physical money

    Great … more breakins.

    > works without internet or electricity

    If there would be no internet or electricity how is your frietkot going to make fries. How is your hairdresser blowing your coupke.

    > allows self-custody

    Unless your wife and kids know the sock in which you keep your money, then it’s shared custody.

    > anonimity

    Great, more robberies.

    > privacy

    If you don’t use your loyalty cards for them sweet points and wear a stealth suit to avoid cameras.

    > works without intermediaries

    You’ll need to buy a safe and alarm system for your sock though. So you probably can’t access if when there’s no power neither.

    > works permissionless

    Great, more hacks.

    > has censorship resistance

    wut?

18. Survival of fittest if you ask me.

    When it comes to money whoever talks about anonimity, always makes me think of shady things to be honest. I am earning my money completely legal, paying my above the roof taxes in full, why would I want anonimity?

19. 70% of Christmas Market’s booths in Brussels accept only (or at least claim to) cash. Good luck with going cashless any time soon.

20. There is a good reason for this because soon the European Central Bank will have to redenominate the Euro currency due to inflation. The lifespan of a currency is often only a quarter of a century before it reaches half life and needs to redenominate. The ECB optimal inflation rate is 2% per year and it has done a good job at doing so since the introduction of the Euro. €100 in 2002 is equivalent in purchasing power to about €150.67 today, an increase of €50.67 over 20 years. The euro had an average inflation rate of 2.07% per year between 2002 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 50.67%. Not bad hey. It also means a euro today only buys 66.370% of what it could buy back then and it is getting close to its half life. Which will most likely be reached by latest 2030. A transitionary phase is need in the adoption of a new currency and that’s when the CBDC comes in because we are lucky with the 2% optimal inflation these past two decades and the expectations is probably that we will expierence a higher inflation environment where most fiat currencies expierence 10% inflation per year. The CBDC is nothing new and its bases are found in the Brazilian Unidade real de valor of 1984

21. This post was brought to you by hairdressers, Chinese restaurants, carwashes and <insert celebration name> markets; dodging taxes since time immemorial. /s, or is it?

    I’m ambivalent on the question. I really, really dislike the bother of handling cash, especially coins. I pester when I can’t use my debit card somewhere, and even more if they have a potentially illegal (?) rule of minimum amount spent to pay with the card. I get it, there are fees. But with mobile banking, those are irrelevant since a shop is no longer tied to the Bancontact network and its fees and commissions.

    I understand the flip side however. A cashless future could mean banks, already notoriously unreliable and predatory, could literally hold our funds hostage. Hell, some banks already charge you for the convenience of withdrawing cash! I’d GTFO of mine if they started charging for that. Digital money held entirely by banks would mean they would be free to charge for all sorts of wild services. It also means they could prevent you from accessing or withdrawing your money in the event on another financial crash, war, or god knows what. They’re already gambling our money, staining it with blood abroad. Who knows what they could potentially do with a complete control over our lives?! Introducing a social credit system could be achieved instantly, they could modify our laws and legislations to benefit them even further! I mean, not that they aren’t doing that part already…

    Here’s my contribution to save cash. I used debit **everywhere**. I pay my barber with cash so that he can -somehow- finance his Mercedes as a 20-something. When he happens to give me some change, I spend that on waffles and gelato at the local, artisanal ice cream parlour.

22. The 4 big banks made a Company for the management of atm’s called Batopin, they are upscaling their atm’s, i believe they have +100 locations already in 2 years and the goal is 700 locations

23. Crypto was invented by citizens, as an answer to the monopoly banks have on the people’s access to money.

    This news article is again showing exactly *why* this was an important move, yet, Belgian citizens are still brainwashed by the narrative initially spread by the bank that crypto is a supposed scam.

    Start thinking for yourselves, that’s the best advice I can give.

    And stop mixing up scammers with the underlying technology. Of course scammers use the technology to scam people, just because it’s something monetary, that doesn’t make the tech a scam.

    When scammers steal your Euro’s, you aren’t going to call the Euro a scam either for that reason.

24. News of today: https://www.tijd.be/ondernemen/banken/belg-betaalt-voor-het-eerst-het-liefst-met-de-kaart/10435862.html

    “Alleen is het voor Belgen steeds moeilijker om toegang te krijgen tot cash, merkt de ECB op in de studie. Terwijl in de rest van de eurozone het aantal geldautomaten licht is gestegen, stelde de centrale bank in België een daling vast. ‘Dat maakt het voor kwetsbare mensen moeilijker om betalingen te kunnen doen.'”