Woah, good digs! You should be a comedian when you grow up. But please, don’t try to become a math or economics teacher; that’s not your thing.

Banks can expect around 4% yearly return on investment. A bank transfer holds the money for two days. So even in the naive view that you're taking this money from the bank, you're getting 0.02% of the transaction value. We're talking dollars per year. If that's the best use of your time, what are you doing with your life?

And that's without going into the fact that if banks' profits are hurt they'll just raise fees or adjust interest rates, and if banks are hurt they'll get subsidies or bailouts.

Why are we supposed to help banks profit? They aren't exactly skint. https://www.statista.com/statistics/386965/uk-banks-net-income-ranking/

If they want to save money they could move out of Canary Wharf to somewhere a bit cheaper....

Banks have resisted immediate electronic transfers for years until recently when they relented due to pressure (or maybe regulations?).

I have the funds. However my bank will only clear $200 the following business day and the balance the business day after.

No, I am not paid via Zelle.

In Canada banks let you transfer money through email. It's very convenient and it's become very popular. Many employees get paid that way instead of cheques now.

You can go to the issuing bank and cash a check without a dime to your name and no account whatsoever. If you go to another bank, a check cashing business, or even a casino¹, the equation changes. Different regions are different. In Belgium, you can cash a cheque at the post office banque without having an account or a dime to your name, and also pay nothing² for the service.

¹ Some casinos will not only cash your check for free but also give you rewards for cashing a check in their casino, knowing that you will most likely give them some gambling action.

² The fee in Belgium used to be €4 but that was recently eliminated.

(edit)

I've never had an etransfer take longer than 5 minutes to complete.

You’ve never done an ACH wire transfer? Those can take 3 days, and this his how most electronic paychecks are paid in the US -- or so I thought. Has that changed? Are people using Zelle for paychecks now?

That's why banks will only cash a cheque if you have money to cover it in your account.

That sounds more like a security mechanism. How does that compensate the interest deficeit during the uncleared time? If you have money in your account, the bank is already getting interest on that to some extent. I don’t see how cashing a check could increase that.

That's why banks will only cash a cheque if you have money to cover it in your account. If you're broke they'll hold the cheque until they get paid from the other bank. I've never had an etransfer take longer than 5 minutes to complete.

When I deposit a check, the bank places a hold for days to ensure the funds actually exist.

Indeed checks should be cashed. When a check is cashed, the institution that supplied the cash is actually at a loss because the cash is given as an advance until the check clears.

(edit) Is Zelle how you receive paychecks?

I haven’t seen a cheque in 15 years

My experience is the opposite in the US.

When I receive money via Zelle, it shows up within seconds.

When I deposit a check, the bank places a hold for days to ensure the funds actually exist.

I thought cheques required a bank to use?

Depends on the kind of cheque. Belgium has five different kinds of cheques, some of which must be deposited into a bank account. Some cheques can be cashed, in which case you do not need an account and do not need to patronise a bank. You are purely a burden to them in this case. In this case, the cheque is a cash access mechanism that does not require licking any boots.

Cash is the only option which doesn't.

Cash gives the greatest autonomy but receiving a salary in cash has been banned in Belgium for like decade or so now. So the paper cheque is currently the sole mechanism for autonomy in Belgium.

I thought cheques required a bank to use? Cash is the only option which doesn't.

I've edited my comment for clarification, because KYC might've been an overstatement here. Perhaps "compliance" with a financial institution's due diligence process to support their KYC obligations; it having a trickling-down effect. But like I've said in my now edited comment, the excessive detail gathered by ticket providers, seems to primarily serve marketing purposes. And although there might be nothing legally stopping one from providing false information, the provided information might be passed onto a third party (Google with reCAPTCHA being an example), comparing it to entries provided to other websites: detecting anomalies and returning a risk-score relating to mitigation steps (additional challenges, denial of service, or follow-up contact). Over the counter ticket sales for events I'm attending are practically non-existent, and door-sales are not providing any guarantees, besides also being extremely rare.

According to the Geldmaat website, it's only specific machines.

Data is relevant forever.

Nonsense. All sensitive data has a window of sensitivity. After you die, most of your personal data will become instantly irrelevant. No one will give a shit what embarrassing shit you said on social media after you’re dead, including this absurd claim that data is relevant forever.

Some data is instantly and forever irrelevant from the moment it is created, like the fake birth date on my acct.

Even direct solid evidence of a criminal offense can become irrelevant if the statute of limitations is reached.

When the cash you draw from the ATM changes hands a dozen times before coming back on the radar 6 months later, the data about the source (your withdrawal from the ATM) is absolutely irrelevant and useless.

It’s tracked forever.

That does not make it relevant. My hard drive is perfectly capable of storing irrelevant totally useless data. It just means the data controller has plenty of storage space and the effort of determining whether it’s relevant has a higher price than the storage space.

They’ll know if they look.

Know what? Whatever you think they’ll know, the knowledge is not useful after the banknote changes a dozen hands.

Data is relevant forever. It’s tracked forever. They’ll know if they look. So, laundering is the only option, as history has shown. Just launder your damn money fool.

Apparently there are ATMs in the Netherlands that dispense coins,

Interesting! I found this:

“However, a user’s Dutch bank may charge fees for certain services, such as withdrawing coins.”

I’ve used a non-Dutch card at Geldmaat and was given a choice of denominations but not coins. Is it just certain specific Geldmaat machines, or is the coin service just for Dutch-issued cards?

Apparently there are ATMs in the Netherlands that dispense coins, which don't have a serial number. Though if you pay for fertilizer in coins that might set off some other flags.

Really feel like its time we shifted currencies up a bit tbh.

So UK currently is £50 (almost non existent) £20 £10 and £5 notes, £2 £1 50p 20p 10p 5p 2p 1p coins.

Drop the 1/2p coins and £5/10 note, add a £5/10 coin and actually print the £50 notes in meaningful quantities, probably add a £100 note too.

It wouldn't be tied to a transaction though would it? Just enough to suggest you may have made a transaction of some kind at that location.

Still, seems like just holding the money may not be enough. Try to swap it. £500 you took out 6 months ago all got spent in the same place, that is probably still your money. If it was £80 of yours, £140 of Johns, £200 of Freds and £80 of Beths, now its far harder to know. Plus its mixed in with so many other transactions as well.

More people swapping notes would also further reduce the value of that kind of surveillance.

No.

This comment needs an /s for the sweet summer children among us! Unless you're one of those children.

Or launder them by asking for big bills from the bank

Indeed it is wise to draw the biggest banknotes possible to reduce the tracking extent.

Note there is a trend of ATMs in recent years dispensing smaller max denominations. In Netherlands and France there are no longer ATMs that dispense banknotes bigger than €50. This is likely a move to increase surveillance without people realising.

That way you don’t have to believe the joke that data can’t be held more than 6 months.

Drawing big notes is orthoganol to the staleness of the data. You can do both. Draw big notes and also make the data stale.

It’s also not about data retention. It’s about data relevance. The more stale the data is, the less likely the source and destination are transacted by the same person. If you pull cash from the wall and that some day buy fertilizer with it, there is greater confidence that the same person is in both transactions than if there are months between the two transactions.

I don’t know if banks generally scan inbound cash that’s deposited over the counter. But if the farm supply store subscribes to a armored car security service to pickup the cash, then the security service would scan the serial numbers and enter the farm supply store as the source.

The evidence would not be strong enough to make an arrest but targetting you for extra surveillance seems likely enough IMO.