France trying for cashless society

LadyEagle · Feb 12, 2003

Cashless society gets mixed reviews
Saturday, February 8, 2003 Posted: 7:09 AM EST (1209 GMT)

"Moneo" can be used for small purchases such as soft drinks, newspapers or subway tickets.
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PARIS, France (AP) -- France is leaping toward a cashless future with a nationwide launch this year of computerized "smart cards," a concept that has so far failed to entice many American, British and German consumers.

The chief idea behind this new breed of microchip-embedded plastic is simple -- to dispense with pocket change and speed smaller transactions.

Dubbed "Moneo," the French electronic purse cards were introduced two years ago in a handful of small regions. In November, the service expanded to include Paris.

Some 850,000 consumers now regularly use Moneo cards at 80,000 grocery shops, parking lots or vending machines, says Pierre Fersztand, chief executive of BMS, the technology company that launched the project.

Because the basic Moneo card is anonymous, there are no privacy or identity theft concerns. But if an owner loses his or her smart card, the cash that's stored onboard can be used by whoever finds it -- which is why there's a $107 storage limit.

Fersztand expects the cards to be available to merchants and customers nationwide by the end of the year.

"We're not worried about whether it will take off here," he said in an interview at the company's Paris headquarters. "The question is how long will it take -- two or 10 years?"

Every French bank has signed up for Moneo. All the major banks are shareholders in BMS, as well as the SNCF railway authority and the Paris mayor's office.

Just like in earlier projects in New York or England, users can upload money from their bank accounts onto smart cards at special teller machines in banks and post offices. Conveniently, they can also refill the so-called stored value cards at any participating shop, supermarket, ticket booth or cinema, punching in a PIN number for security reasons.

No PIN is required to dispense cash.

And for those who dislike the idea of yet more plastic in their wallets, Moneo can be incorporated onto their existing credit cards -- something that has never been tried outside of France. In fact, it's already been automatically added to 25 million credit cards that were up for renewal -- with the owners not always being aware of it, Fersztand said.
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The rest of the article is at:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/02/08/cash.smart.ap/index.html

stubbornkelly · Feb 12, 2003

Colleges have been doing this for years (well, at least 9, based on when I first went to college). We had it at JMU, and at Guilford. It worked well in both places.

Johnv · Feb 13, 2003

There's no such thing as a cashless society. However, there is such thing as "paperless".

I hate carrying paper money. I'm more able to be a responsible financial stweard of the money God gave me with with electronic debits. It still irks me that my local mom & pop grocery store will accept debit cards, but Mc Donalds doesn't.

TheOliveBranch · Feb 13, 2003

Sounds similar to the I-Pass of Illinois, and the EZ-Pass of the mid-Atlantic states. Maybe running on the same concept of the Metro-Pass in New York City.

post-it · Feb 16, 2003

My suggestion for America: Create a 50 cent paper denomination, then trash the metal coin system altogether. Then round up or down to the nearest 50 cents.

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