Bank of Ireland 100 branches cash free - security risk

Impetus

This morning's Irish Times (13.06.2017) has an item on BoI discontinuing cash at 100 branches. This is a dangerous strategy in a world of increasing hacking attacks and bank payment system failures - which occur on a random basis. Then you have the central card payment systems - eg Visa and Mastercard. Not to mind at the customer level - card problems, chip problems, PIN problems etc.

Block chain is not the answer - it too has hacking problems and value volatility. And one needs a certain IQ and aptitude to get ones head around Bitcoin. There is a section of society who are bankless. These include people who have 'over-borrowed' and are in arrears, and whose banking services have been cut-off.

Cash is a reliable backup and is democratic. Banks and hackers are not.

It is a bit like the postal service. Every country needs a mechanism to deliver physical packets - be they letters or parcels with online shopping etc. Back in the day there were Saturday postal deliveries in Ireland. The Saturday delivery vanished except for PO Boxes, and now nobody gets post on Saturday. Utility bills and other documents are being sent by email instead. Which is a huge loss of revenue to a postal system. Unlike postal services in the most of the rest of Europe, the An Post is not a big bank competing with other banks. Add to that the low population density. Low usage of a service causes it to drop away and go out of business. In Denmark, postal deliveries are only about 3 times per week, and the price of a stamp is about EUR 2.50 for a basic letter. Which is an appalling service. Switzerland has similar high labour costs, and Swisspost gave anybody who wants it a PO Box in their local village, shopping centre, wherever so that they could collect their mail at a time convenient to them open 24/24h. The same concept also works for online shopping.

Another irony - utility bills (in original hardcopy format) are used in countries without an ID card as proof of address. Denmark, Ireland and GB are the only countries I can think of in Europe that do not have an ID card with your address on the back.

Irish payment cards do not have the underlying bank account IBAN printed on the card - to make it easily accessible to the account holder when required. They are designed to suit the bank and its systems. No regard for the customer.

Irish 'infrastructural' planning is dumb in the extreme (ie poorly thought out from the perspective of the end user). All the design effort goes into the needs of the government bureaucrats - witness the badly designed Eircode, the most user-unfriendly postcode on the planet. Hence it is unused, unloved and was a big waste of money.

nate.drake

Impetus wrote: »

This morning's Irish Times (13.06.2017) has an item on BoI discontinuing cash at 100 branches. This is a dangerous strategy in a world of increasing hacking attacks and bank payment system failures - which occur on a random basis. Then you have the central card payment systems - eg Visa and Mastercard. Not to mind at the customer level - card problems, chip problems, PIN problems etc.

Block chain is not the answer - it too has hacking problems and value volatility. And one needs a certain IQ and aptitude to get ones head around Bitcoin. There is a section of society who are bankless. These include people who have 'over-borrowed' and are in arrears, and whose banking services have been cut-off.

Cash is a reliable backup and is democratic. Banks and hackers are not.

It is a bit like the postal service. Every country needs a mechanism to deliver physical packets - be they letters or parcels with online shopping etc. Back in the day there were Saturday postal deliveries in Ireland. The Saturday delivery vanished except for PO Boxes, and now nobody gets post on Saturday. Utility bills and other documents are being sent by email instead. Which is a huge loss of revenue to a postal system. Unlike postal services in the most of the rest of Europe, the An Post is not a big bank competing with other banks. Add to that the low population density. Low usage of a service causes it to drop away and go out of business. In Denmark, postal deliveries are only about 3 times per week, and the price of a stamp is about EUR 2.50 for a basic letter. Which is an appalling service. Switzerland has similar high labour costs, and Swisspost gave anybody who wants it a PO Box in their local village, shopping centre, wherever so that they could collect their mail at a time convenient to them open 24/24h. The same concept also works for online shopping.

Another irony - utility bills (in original hardcopy format) are used in countries without an ID card as proof of address. Denmark, Ireland and GB are the only countries I can think of in Europe that do not have an ID card with your address on the back.

Irish payment cards do not have the underlying bank account IBAN printed on the card - to make it easily accessible to the account holder when required. They are designed to suit the bank and its systems. No regard for the customer.

Irish 'infrastructural' planning is dumb in the extreme (ie poorly thought out from the perspective of the end user). All the design effort goes into the needs of the government bureaucrats - witness the badly designed Eircode, the most user-unfriendly postcode on the planet. Hence it is unused, unloved and was a big waste of money.

Hi Impetus,

I certainly agree that branches should keep cash on hand but I would urge you to consider that Blockchains are an excellent way to keep a trustless ledger. Volatility is only an issue if you're using a specific cryptocurrency like Bitcoin but a Blockchain can do so much more such as providing timestamps, prevent fraud from double transactions and so on.

I did an article on financial institutions that are adopting Blockchain Tech a while back if this interests you - it starts by saying "Bitcoin is dead. Long live the Blockchain!".

I imagine in your original post you were referring to using cryptocurrencies as an alternative to cash. I agree with you, the time isn't right, we need more widespread adoption to keep the price stable.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Do you have any stats to back up your post? Pros and cons of both systems, cost of having one or the other, etc etc.

You do realize that there are risks associated with cash also?

Having lived in both cashless and cash societies, cashless is a much more convenient system.

I don't know what you mean by cash is democratic. Can you explain that one?

nate.drake

Dominique Warm Ping-pong wrote: »

Do you have any stats to back up your post? Pros and cons of both systems, cost of having one or the other, etc etc.

You do realize that there are risks associated with cash also?

Having lived in both cashless and cash societies, cashless is a much more convenient system.

I don't know what you mean by cash is democratic. Can you explain that one?

One thing I do like about cash is that it gives you a certain degree of anonymity unlike cashless. Ok, Ok, nothing to hide and all that but I can do without the hassle of being seen purchasing something close to the scene of a crime etc.

spaceHopper

First active went cashless I closed my account. I'm with AIB, if they did the same I'd close my accounts too.

When thing looked bad here before the IMF / EU came in, I took cash out of the bank, just enough for a week but still I has it. Same with Greece, they were operating with restrictions on ATM's can Card you need to be able to access cash any bank that can't provide that so long.

If Irish banks what to go on line the why use them, it's online I can use any bank in the world. Whenever I've has a problems, for example my card got eaten one by another banks machine and debited my money too. I've had to to a real person in the branch, I'd tried the phone banking but they where totally useless, branch had it sorted before I'd finished explaining what the problem was. The only advantage of Irish banks is a personal service, if they lose that go elsewhere.

Impetus

spaceHopper wrote: »

First active went cashless I closed my account. I'm with AIB, if they did the same I'd close my accounts too.

When thing looked bad here before the IMF / EU came in, I took cash out of the bank, just enough for a week but still I has it. Same with Greece, they were operating with restrictions on ATM's can Card you need to be able to access cash any bank that can't provide that so long.

If Irish banks what to go on line the why use them, it's online I can use any bank in the world. Whenever I've has a problems, for example my card got eaten one by another banks machine and debited my money too. I've had to to a real person in the branch, I'd tried the phone banking but they where totally useless, branch had it sorted before I'd finished explaining what the problem was. The only advantage of Irish banks is a personal service, if they lose that go elsewhere.

The best argument for using a Swiss bank. They have brilliant online web access, high security, and you can buy shares, funds, precious metals anything you like in the world that has an ISIN. You can see your total financial dashboard valued in real time on the screen. Your account is as multi-currency as you need it to be. It is perfectly legal to use one, assuming you disclose it where required by law in your country of residence.

The crappy banking system in Ireland which does not include share dealing and custody, and international funds is part if the reason for the property obsession of the country. Property is thus highly volatile and you should not keep all your financial eggs in one basket. With a Swiss bank account you can disperse your savings into many asset types, and yet keep control of them from one page - ie your PC screen.

The only reason you might need an Irish bank is cash access. Getting rid of cash is shooting itself in the foot.

spaceHopper

Impetus wrote: »

The best argument for using a Swiss bank. They have brilliant online web access, high security, and you can buy shares, funds, precious metals anything you like in the world that has an ISIN. You can see your total financial dashboard valued in real time on the screen. Your account is as multi-currency as you need it to be. It is perfectly legal to use one, assuming you disclose it where required by law in your country of residence.

The crappy banking system in Ireland which does not include share dealing and custody, and international funds is part if the reason for the property obsession of the country. Property is thus highly volatile and you should not keep all your financial eggs in one basket. With a Swiss bank account you can disperse your savings into many asset types, and yet keep control of them from one page - ie your PC screen.

The only reason you might need an Irish bank is cash access. Getting rid of cash is shooting itself in the foot.

They say that only 3% of transactions in the bank involve cash but they don't get that if they become a faceless online entity there are ones out there that are better at doing that and will wipe them out.

nate.drake

spaceHopper wrote: »

They say that only 3% of transactions in the bank involve cash but they don't get that if they become a faceless online entity there are ones out there that are better at doing that and will wipe them out.

I also travel a lot with my writing and need to bring back foreign cash to my bank to convert to Euros and pay into my account... presumably they'd axe this too? You know the person who came up with this bright idea isn't someone who has to worry about this kind of thing as they're on a six figure salary!

Impetus

spaceHopper wrote: »

They say that only 3% of transactions in the bank involve cash but they don't get that if they become a faceless online entity there are ones out there that are better at doing that and will wipe them out.

Depending on the country in Europe, 30 to 50% of transactions involve cash. The Germans being at the top of the list. They are scared of cards (many of them). They are scared to buy equities (ditto). And they keep 2.2 trillion in giro accounts (current accounts) most of whom are open to SEPA DD charges from anywhere in the EU! I wouldn't keep more than 10k in an account that was open to SEPA direct debits. Methinks "The Bank" is telling lies about "only 3%".

Impetus

nate.drake wrote: »

Hi Impetus,

I certainly agree that branches should keep cash on hand but I would urge you to consider that Blockchains are an excellent way to keep a trustless ledger. Volatility is only an issue if you're using a specific cryptocurrency like Bitcoin but a Blockchain can do so much more such as providing timestamps, prevent fraud from double transactions and so on.

I did an article on financial institutions that are adopting Blockchain Tech a while back if this interests you - it starts by saying "Bitcoin is dead. Long live the Blockchain!".

I imagine in your original post you were referring to using cryptocurrencies as an alternative to cash. I agree with you, the time isn't right, we need more widespread adoption to keep the price stable.

I agree with much of what you say. Blockchain has huge potential to process financial transactions, in a secure manner, given time to develop.

Unfortunately some big banks are trying to 'adopt' the technology (read kill it off) because of competition with their pig inefficient services. In the Eurozone we have SEPA to process transfers between bank accounts. The SEPA system run by the ECB processes a transfer between one account and another in under a second. Yet SEPA transfers can take the best part of a day to reach their destination, because the banking pigs who operate the accounts, do things in batches, and customers can wait for the next batch. It is like waiting for a bus in an Irish city. We expect to have 'instant' SEPA payments by November 2017, but they will be limited to €15'000 per transaction. Which while fine to pay your electricity bill - but no good if you are in a notary's office in a civil law country and are buying a property from Mr X. (Civil law does not need solicitors for 'conveyancing' - buyer and seller visit a notary and typically the job is done is five minutes. And the cost is a few hundred EUR.)

If the powers that be are worried about having instant payments taking more than 10 sec (ie limiting the value to 15k), they should require banks to use multi-factor authentication, which includes a second round of authentication linked to part of the destination IBAN and amount. eg if I am sending 5'000'000 to IBAN CH 2345 6789 2900 2220, I should have to use multi-factor during log-in, and when I specify a payment, the multi-factor calculator should compute a second code based on perhaps the last 5 figures of the IBAN and the payment amount (excluding cents). This would prevent re-play attacks giving the same sum twice to the same beneficiary or using the login to give the money to a fraudster at a different IBAN.

Conventional bank account numbers should be taken out of use. Only IBANs to detect and prevent typos and standardize things.

I know of many banks (in mainland Europe) who will offer mult- currency accounts, accounts that can hold shares in up to 200 countries, funds, gold and other precious metals, and ETFs and similar. Anything with an ISIN. But I don't know of any bank that includes a crypto-currency in one's consolidated account - where one can see one's net worth on a single page. At the conversion end (eg bank end) when one converts XBT (the ISO currency code for Bitcoin - not BTC as many Anglo publications use) - the bank can see the history of the XBT - and who was involved in the chain - art thieves, blackmailers etc or just normal transactions. The blockchain provides an audit trail into the banking system if they want to use it. But they don't because they would prefer to charge EUR 30 for a SWIFT transfer that takes 2 days to reach its destination - and on top of that agio if different currencies are involved. And if it is an Irish, British or American bank, they will force it to be converted into the local currency - unless the account holder has a big deal multi-currency account.

Many card companies charge 4% for 'foreign' transactions. Which is a total racket. If blockchain currencies were widely in use, there would be a single currency like the EUR (in an ideal situation), or at least we would have a competitive global real-time market to buy and sell currencies without a man in the middle thieving attack. As somebody told me back in the day (who was one of them) 'all bankers are bastards'. And as Ireland has seen, they will bring a country to its knees to profit from the event. The blockchain (together with Danish style mortgages which are sold on the stock market as bonds under regulated commission rates) could be a big part of the solution to creating a sustainable financial system.