The Evil Payments Trilogy: Push Payment Fraud; Abolition of Cash and Deductions from Face Value When Payment is Made by Cards
The Evil Payments Trilogy: Push Payment Fraud; Abolition of Cash and Deductions from Face Value When Payment is Made by Cards

Author(s): Gordon Kerr
Subject(s): Economy, Micro-Economics, Public Finances
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: cash; payments; cards; payment fraud; CBDC; central banks; Bank of England; Payment Services Regulator; Visa Mastercard; stress tests; IFRS accounting rules; zombie banks
Summary/Abstract: Initiatives in accounting, central banking supervision of banks, bank stability and payments which incept in the UK are generally copied throughout the EU. The Bank of England are, it is believed, determined to abolish cash and replace it with a CBDC (central bank digital currency) already trendily named “Britcoin”. Riding the general wave of enthusiasm for tech and “digitisation”, rapid changes are planned late 2022 early 2023 to the UK payments system. All of these changes, proposed by regulators as ‘modernisation’ to be embraced and worshipped on the altar of tech, tech and more tech, should be paused. The real agenda of the Bank of England (and ECB) is to abolish cash to enable deeply negative interest rates despite rising inflation. This will be retrograde for UK and European societies; will lead to mass poverty and will reduce democratic accountability of governments. Moreover, the desire to abolish cash has incentivised the Bank of England via its subsidiary regulator, the Payment Services Regulator, to do nothing to address rising frauds and charges for card use, since they will claim that this Britcoin replacement of cash will be easier to use and cheaper than cards and less exposed to fraud. The present payments landscape in the UK is dystopian, marred by three easily fixable problems causing massive consumer harm. They are each presented here and collectively termed the ‘evil payments trilogy’.

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