this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
779 points (99.7% liked)

News

22956 readers
4022 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] NateNate60 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

FedNow still relies on banks. The only way we can truly get the commerical banks and financial institutions out of the picture is with cryptocurrency (lol) or a CBDC (central bank digital currency). In short, a CBDC would operate like a Government-run Cash App or PayPal and the balance in a CBDC wallet holds the same status as paper money and is legal tender.

I believe that CBDCs are entirely necessary for a digital future. For the everyday citizen, the only form of "cash", as in "Government-issued legal money", is paper banknotes and pieces of coinage. This is wholly insufficient for a system where an increasing amount of business is conducted digitally, and all it does is invite middlemen like Visa to insert themselves like a leech and take profit off every transaction. Banks and financial institutions already have digital cash; account balances at the Federal Reserve are as good as cash to banks as far as the law is concerned, but the everyday layman can't just go into the Federal Reserve and ask to open an account.

This is exactly that CBDCs will solve. Anyone can hold real money (not just a promise to pay money) in a digital format and exchange it peer-to-peer or use it to conduct business free of fees and middlemen.

The only problem is that conservatives in America think that they can't trust the Government, so it's better to trust for-profit financial institutions instead. After all, the banks have never fucked it up before, right?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No need for crypto, there are plans on deck for a postal banking system that already include debit card service (and a government union for the workers who have to maintain the infrastructure). That's pretty much the end of the credit card mafia if it comes to pass.

[–] NateNate60 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What is this service?

I really doubt it will be as revolutionary as you claim.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What service? Debit cards for postal banking accounts?

It absolutely would be because for-profit banks would have to compete with non-profit government services..

[–] NateNate60 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What country is this?

In the US, we have credit unions. Credit unions are member-owned not-for-profit financial institutions that offer the same services as banks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

And credit unions offer accounts with lower fees and higher interest rates than commercial banks, whose only advantages are having more branch offices, ATMs, and a bigger marketing budget.

Postal banking solves this deficit by making every post office a branch of the national credit union.

[–] NateNate60 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

See this symbol?

If you have a card issued by a credit union, yours probably has this too. It means you can use any other credit union's ATMs that have this symbol without fees as if they were owned by your credit union.

There are thousands of credit unions across the US operating tens of thousands of ATMs. 7-Eleven ATMs are also part of this network.

I'm not saying that postal banking is a bad idea. In fact, it's a great idea, as a way to serve underserved communities and as a way to generate revenue for the Postal Service, if nothing else. But the idea of not-for-profit banking on a national scale isn't exactly a new concept.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you're aware of what a back-of-card network is then you should understand how transformative a state-backed zero-fee interchange would be.

[–] NateNate60 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

That's essentially what FedNow wants to be, except the goal is to replace the debit card network.

Trying to start a new debit card network is a chicken-and-egg problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Not when you're a government.

Mandate that payment processors have to support the state debit network and you'll be on half the terminals in the country in under a year.