Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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E-Paper Money

Print your own money when you need it.
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Recently the Swedish banks failed miserably to replace use of cash with a cash card. Maybe a compromise solution would have promise. Clients could produce their own bills in the correct currency and denominations, via e-paper and have their accounts debited. The following features might be included:

An e-wallet that would look like a conventional wallet but would have a PIN, a keypad and would contain blank and “printed” e-paper money. The e-wallet could be loaded with a sum via a bank, a cash machine or a WAP connection. It could then print, erase or change its e-paper notes, adjusting the sum and eventually the bank account.

The e-paper, in a standard size, would have little worth until it is “printed” with the electronic ink as legal tender in a variety of currencies and denominations. It would feel and look like existing bills to be used for payment to individuals or businesses with or without e-paper money capabilities. The e-money would have to incorporate security features and any printing, re-printing or erasure would lead to a change in the account balance.

Cash machines could have additional functions for paying out e-money, outputting blank e-money paper and loading an e-wallet with an amount. Business cash registers could, like e-wallets, print, change and erase e-money.

The advantages would include less cash to carry and pay, easy payment abroad, being faster than checks and more secure than mag-stripe cards. Though allowing new denominations like a £30 note might be workable, using decimal amounts such as a $15.95 bill to eliminate coins would seem problematic. This scheme seems so obvious, though less than practical, but I’ve found no mention of it.

FarmerJohn, Oct 29 2002

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       In an electronic nutshell, yes.
FarmerJohn, Oct 29 2002
  

       Just keep the cash card. You're jumping through hoops here, but all you're accomplishing is handing me a piece of paper which I'm going to hand right back to you.
phoenix, Oct 29 2002
  

       The cash card didn't fly here (too much trouble and fees vs doing away with small change) and doesn't function between individuals. I know this is overworked but instead of money and a card, one would have only a single, flexible medium.
FarmerJohn, Oct 29 2002
  

       Estimated time until someone hacks this system and begins printing unlimited money - fifteen minutes and 42 seconds. So, I'm for it! Let's do it. ;-)
submitinkmonkey, Mar 23 2005
  

       I also had this idea. My feeling was that people carried cash in their pockets, why not e-cash on their phone? Every bit of electronic cash issued would be registered against the cash reserve of the economy in a central register. The money would live on your computer/ipod/phone and you could spend it at will by transferring it to someone elses. Both recipient and donor of the cash would have to type their pins in and the bit in the national cash register would change ownership. This is brilliant because you could have several pins at the point of sale. One of which notified the national register that you were being held up at gun point and being extorted...whilst simulating a sale! Also, you could invest money. This creates a way to syndicate investment (i.e. raise capital) without banks! Simply modify the state of your money in the national cash register on your iphone from 'spending cash' to 'invested cash' and in whom you had invested the cash. That entity could then create new spending cash based on how much money was invested in it. In this way the total amount of spending cash in the economy would be kept constant. Maybe I should start a new idea...
dizzyIntellect, Jan 26 2010
  
      
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