National Irish Bank Moves to Cashless Banking
PAUL CULLEN Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Since the article The Cashless Society in Business Week Magazine in 1967 – Socialists world-wide have been planned the end of world currencies. For as long as currency exists people have freedom. The removal of all currency means that the government would have control over all of its citizenry controling what is bought and sold, tracking all financial transactions, accessing and viewing all citizen holdings in their electronic accounts. And if anything is found wrong they could instantly zot out everything in your personal account.

And the only thing that would remain outside of their perview then would be barter and trade. So that when warehouses of goods would move back and forth the feds could theorhetically move in and vacuum up all the ill gotten goods that were not subject to their cashless system.

In this scheme only hackers, the very best could get arround all of this and issue money in fake accounts etc. Which is one of the things that is being worked on world-wide at this hour with little success as I understand it.

There are still a number of years off from the coalescing of these various elements into the one world government and system of the beast in revelation. We are not saying here that these things are long off for as being 51 years old I can testify that 20-30 years is but the blink of an eye.

So here is the first national bank in the world that is moving to the cashless society. One may view this as a test and depending how it goes on two front, 1) Will the public at this time accept it or will they do their banking elsewhere 2) How much electronic stealing will target this bank. If these two things go well in the test period ussually for a year or two the tenticles will begin to expand from nation to nation not as a whole so as to not to alarm the public but in certain banks so that the idea can be accepted and glamorized in ad campaigns.

Awake thou that sleepest, for the Lord is nigh even at the door.

IT MIGHT sound like a contradiction in terms, but for the first time one of the main Irish consumer banks is moving to cashless banking in all its branches.

National Irish Bank has written to thousands of its customers this month informing them of a “new style of banking” in which branches will not handle over-the-counter cash transactions.

The letter says branches will no longer handle cash withdrawals and lodgements, night safe lodgements and foreign currency cash. Branches will continue to lodge cheques, drafts and postal orders and issue drafts.

Customers are advised to obtain cash from “ATMs nationwide” or to seek “cash-back” on their debit cards.

A spokesman confirmed that cashless banking was being introduced across the entire NIB branch network over the next 18 months, and had already been introduced successfully in a number of branches. He said the feedback from customers was positive with few complaints.

“These branches provide better security for staff and allow us to spend more time, in a better setting, with our customers . . . Customers like them, as our staff have more time to discuss customers’ overall needs.”

However, NIB customer Frank Barry from Malahide described the change as hilarious and ridiculous: “A bank refusing to accept cash . . . I thought that’s what they are for?”

Mr Barry contacted The Irish Times after his wife Catherine Gralton received two letters informing her that the local branch would stop handling cash from next February.

“If I did have a cash lodgement, I would have to go to another bank, buy a bank draft and then go to NIB to lodge it,” he said.

An NIB spokesman said the changes followed the model used by NIB’s parent, Danish-owned Danske Bank. Cashless banking is far more common in Scandinavia. while Irish dependence on cash is among the highest in Europe.

The spokesman said it recognised that some business customers may need to lodge and withdraw cash and it would offer these a number of options.

However, he declined to say what these options were, citing security reasons.

NIB announced earlier this month it was cutting 150 jobs and closing 25 of the bank’s 58 branches because of the recession and changes in the banking sector.

ACC Bank, which specialises in business lending, has also moved to cashless operations.

The Irish Banking Federation said it was not aware of any other main banks introducing cashless banking at this stage, though a spokesman added that “they would all love to”.

Handling cash is more expensive than the non-cash alternatives such as internet banking or debit and credit cards.

Cash also poses greater security threats for the banks, whereas consumers bear many of the risks associated with non-cash transactions.