Banks censor everyone on both sides of the poltical spectrum without a court order for risk mitigation.
There's a law that allow police getting banking records without a warrant, just a subpeona.
There's no downside to collecting too much information so banks ask for way more PII than needed and then it breaches, making more KYC fraud with the newly breached data, giving an excuse to continue collecting more information instead of making a secure system. Their apps are full of security theatre to comply with regulations.
On the topic of cash and crime–encrypted messengers and VPNs are also used for crime. Except, there's more crime in online banking than in cash. The war against cash is actually part of the war against privacy. We should not sacrifice privacy because of crime.
"consumers reported losing more money to scams where they paid with bank transfers or cryptocurrency than all other payment methods combined."
Or maybe it's a good thing? In The Curse of Cash, economist Kenneth Rogoff (of austerity fame, or infamy) argues against cash, particularly large denomination bank notes and crypto, as accessories to crime, corruption, and tax evasion, and I'm with him there. But also, btw, because you can't impose negative interest rates on cash (but on deposits!) - not sure what to think about that.
That's part of why larger banknotes like the €500 euro were discontinued.
Oliver Bullough on Odd Lots podcast[0] talked about this issue recently (the large denominations). I guess he had a book "Everybody Loves Our Dollars" that went into this too.
I found the argument compelling but hopefully there's a balance to be struck at individual vs organizational scales.
The 1990s called, they want this "problem that it might not be too late to solve" back.
Sorry, cash is all but dead in 2026. I use cash about once a month to pay my barber, because he doesn't take any form of electronic payments. That's the only need for cash that I have left. That and the quarter I keep in the car to unlock a shopping cart at Aldi.
It's getting harder to do. More and more places are going exclusively cashless. I was at a college football game last Saturday and all the concessions are cashless now.
My barber is actually an inconvenience, because I need stop and get cash, which I otherwise almost never carry anymore.
Graphene's latest cope from common banking apps not working on their OS anymore? I suppose that's one way to get ahead of the problem, pronounce them all to be a disaster and not worth using :)
There's no downside to collecting too much information so banks ask for way more PII than needed and then it breaches, making more KYC fraud with the newly breached data, giving an excuse to continue collecting more information instead of making a secure system. Their apps are full of security theatre to comply with regulations.
On the topic of cash and crime–encrypted messengers and VPNs are also used for crime. Except, there's more crime in online banking than in cash. The war against cash is actually part of the war against privacy. We should not sacrifice privacy because of crime.
"consumers reported losing more money to scams where they paid with bank transfers or cryptocurrency than all other payment methods combined."
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/03/...
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172132/th...
Oliver Bullough on Odd Lots podcast[0] talked about this issue recently (the large denominations). I guess he had a book "Everybody Loves Our Dollars" that went into this too.
I found the argument compelling but hopefully there's a balance to be struck at individual vs organizational scales.
[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etylJHe_p7Q
Add the UK's new Click to Pay. To sign me up without my consent Barclays passed my email address to MasterCard to associate with a "digital profile".
Sorry, cash is all but dead in 2026. I use cash about once a month to pay my barber, because he doesn't take any form of electronic payments. That's the only need for cash that I have left. That and the quarter I keep in the car to unlock a shopping cart at Aldi.
Speak for yourself. I pay cash more than I don't.
My barber is actually an inconvenience, because I need stop and get cash, which I otherwise almost never carry anymore.