We can't have that. The banks insist on trusted*1 platforms for their apps and their apps are increasingly mandatory. I expect that not only cash use will be restricted*2 as it happend in many other parts of the world, but bank cards will be obsolete soon too, replaced by the unavoidable user-tracking app.
*1 by them
*2 in my country, it is illegal to pay more than ~2000 euro in cash to a company as a natural person, or more than ~1000 euro in cash between two companies. Allegedly, it's to prevent tax fraud, but the transactions data is oh-so-very-good at profiling people!
> but bank cards will be obsolete soon too, replaced by the unavoidable user-tracking app.
As bad as the tracking part is, we're already getting profiled and sold based on card purchases anyway. Smart phone based payment does increase the amount of collectible data, but if it kills the practice of card skimming, that's probably a net win for society. I've never been hit by a skimmer and always tap to pay or check the terminal before putting my card in. Failing that, I use a CC where I can chargeback fraud and it becomes someone else's problem, rather than debit where the money comes off my account directly. I know people that have had their accounts drained by thieves using skimmer data, usually at gas pumps.
And all that could be avoided by simply demagnetizing the strip. Or convincing the banks to deprecate that kind of cards and readers. I can't imagine why they didn't do it already.
*1 by them
*2 in my country, it is illegal to pay more than ~2000 euro in cash to a company as a natural person, or more than ~1000 euro in cash between two companies. Allegedly, it's to prevent tax fraud, but the transactions data is oh-so-very-good at profiling people!