Comment by alwa
3 days ago
Cash requires in-person exchange. To use it electronically, you’d need to participate in the formal banking sector. Many people can’t or don’t.
Instead you can take your cash to any of a large number of retailers and acquire a card that sits outside the tight credit/debit-card regulations. That card, thanks to the wide reach of various multinational corporations, has broad (and cross-border) value and is suitable for electronic exchange. All that in exchange for a small(ish) tax (the price of the card plus whatever discount the recipient/exchange applies to its face value), and less recourse if you’re scammed or you screw up somehow.
Incidentally you might be interested in @patio’s description [0] of Japanese konbini (convenience store) payments. There, your remote payee gives you a transaction number. You take that number to your local convenience store and hand them the cash to complete the otherwise-electronic transaction.
[0] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/payments-in-japan/#:~...
In addition to other credit/debit-card regulations, gift cards generally don't support "charge backs" (as they generally don't have the infrastructure of the full credit card system and the merchant banks) so can be in some cases used as an exploit for future fraud with the receiving vendor.
> has broad (and cross-border) value
I’m wondering if this is the primary use case and that’s why I don’t really get it? I see the online aspect, but it comes with a whole other set of problems that for most cases it’s hard to imagine are easier to deal with than exchanging cash. But a way to send money across borders without any controls I can see why that might be popular. Hard to tie that back to advice the AARP should be giving though.
Cash doesn’t require in-person exchange. Western Union is cheap. I grew up with poor family, that’s how they bummed money remotely.