Digital Cash

[hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)]

>Something overlooked in the real world that encourages the maintenance of
>private payment systems (cash) is th existence of a large number of people
>with bad credit.

Bad credit or no credit.  Having no record in the credit databases is
as good as have negative entries, for many purposes.

>About 20% of the US population has neither credit cards nor checking
>accounts.  Some of this is because of personal preference but a lot of it
>is because these people can't handle something as abstract as a checking
>account without wrecking it.  

A significant part of this is that banks have simply moved out of a
lot of neighboorhoods, and checking accounts are simply not easily
available.  Many people grow up without interaction with the banking
system, and therefore don't get electronified.

Eric