Cashless Payment Systems Headlines in 2017 and Bible Prophecy?

Cashless Payment Systems and Bible Prophecy?

Cashless Payment Systems and the Cashless Society is gaining momentum in many countries around the globe. Checking News Feeds in 2017 recently reveals a huge increase in the keyword "Cashless" coming up in the global headlines,. With many countries starting to increasingly adopt cashless forms of payment either in preference to cash OR as the only form of payment available when this new form of payment is introduced.

This article is a follow on article from previous articles that skim the surface of the emerging cashless society or my personal experience with it, and looks at the latest emerging headlines around the globe and where we are heading in the not too distant future.

Cashless Payments Around the Globe
London has adopted cashless on it's public transport system including TheTube. The Buses were the latest in 2014, which has led to other transport companies following the same route outside of London.

Sweden is currently the world leader with most transactions being conducted via cashless means. In 2015, cash transactions formed a miniscule 2% of all value payments in Sweden. Swish is by far the most popular of the payment apps that allow realtime transfer of money in between people in Sweden. It is used by more than 50% of the population making over 9 million payments a month.

India is increasingly going down the cashless route with the Indian Government forcefully introducing the system (s) and making the world headlines as a result, many are saying that India is a test case being monitored by the US? In November, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, introduced a surprise ban on the country’s largest currency bills, 500 and 1,000 rupee in an effort to make cashless payments the more attractive and viable option. It caused chaos as a result. WHY? India is wholly dependent on cash just to tick. Between 90% and 98% of transactions are cash-based. The equivalent figure in Western Europe is 68%. The reason for this cashless payment push by the India’s PM is it's difficult to sustain a black market, or avoid tax, if every transaction leaves a trail, as all electronic transactions do. This in effect kills the black market economy and the associated illegal activity, which in theory means more taxes and revenue in the governments coffers.

In South Korea, only 20% of transactions are cash-based. The plan there is to remove all coins from circulation by 2020. The government is urging consumers to put their small change onto ‘T-Money’ cards — electronic travel passes that can also be used in convenience stores.
In Amsterdam try paying for a coffee in a coffee shop with hard cash, most have gone over to some form of cashless payment system. According to Cafe owners they no longer need bulky tills and tedious visits to the bank and the threat of being robbed has been reduced to zero. (In theory)

Payment methods at present for cashless tend to be either Debit or Credit Card, Contactless Payment Cards, Swipe Cards or other forms of card that will only work with a particular company or service or are done via Apps on Mobile Devices such as Apple Pay and Android Pay. RFID and Biometrics is another emerging form of payment but is still in it's technological infancy but is also gathering pace especially in the US.

Germany is currently at a strange and maybe unintentional logger heads with Brussels who is planning to steam roller cashless payment systems across the Euro Zone. Germany is one of the few countries at present that shows a stubborn loyalty to cash much to the annoyance of the plans of Brussels, with still 80% of transactions conducted using the traditional payment method.

Latest enforced examples
Here's some examples of cashless payments that are being forced onto us whether we like it or not.

Motorway Tolls (Many countries are introducing)
Cashless Airports (China World 1st)
Cashless Public Transport (London and Worldwide)
Cashless Supermarket (Amazon)
Cashless Coffee Shop (Europe)
Road Taxing and Congestion Charging (some countries employing compulsory RFID in cars as a means of monitoring and also payment)

The general consensus seems to be that little resistance is being met by the General public around the world with the introduction of what seems to be compulsory cashless payment only systems. It seems people blindly accept the new circumstances blinded by the benefits and unaware of the information that is given in return.

The touted Cashless Payments benefits?
Obviously the incentive to go cashless means faster payments, shorter queues, no need for bulky wallets, no more queueing in banks or at cash machines, no more bulky and heavy change, shops and other services have less hassle with handling cash and governments state that cashless payments remove the ability for cash to be misused such as in money laundering and terrorist financing purposes, tax evasion, payment of illegal immigrants.....the list goes on. These are the benefits you often see touted which act as a sweetener to adopting any form of cashless payment system. But there is a downside to this often utopian or nirvana billed payment system which in reality is highly skewed towards the Big Brother mentality. While some of the changes may benefit the consumer, there’s little question that they all benefit traders, service providers, and finance houses but it's the Governments ultimately that reap the huge rewards.


The pluses and minuses of Cash
Cash has the important feature of offering anonymity to transactions. Such anonymity may be desired for legitimate reason (e.g. protection of privacy). But, such anonymity can also be misused for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes. The possibility to conduct large cash payments facilitates money laundering and terrorist financing activities because of the difficulty to control cash payment transactions.
Europe has taken the draconian step to remove the €500 note and impose limits on cash transactions in a move to limit the size of cash transactions meaning larger payments have to be made via some form of cashless payment system.

Latest Headlines
Mastercard moves India one step closer to ‘cashless society’ with Samsung Pay. March 22 2017
Samsung Pay is a simple, secure and convenient mobile payments solution that works virtually anywhere you can swipe or tap a card. This allows customers to pay with their debit or credit card using compatible Samsung Galaxy devices.
The Indian government is making considerable efforts to transition India into a cashless society through the implementation and acceleration of e-payments. Via newsroom.mastercard.com
Fast Food's Adoption of Self-Serve Cashless Kiosks Means Fast Revenue for OTI in $18 Billion Market April 2017
MasterCard introduces Biometric Card with embedded fingerprint scanner. 22 Apr 2017
https://www.technowize.com/mastercard-introduces-biometric-card-embedded-fingerprint-scanner/
Via Technowize

1 in 3 Europeans ready to dump cash ahead of digital future
Tata Power announces that it only uses cashless payment. 24 April 2017
Via Tech2 (blog)

US restaurants lead the charge for a cashless future 30 March 2017
Via Mobile Payments Today

Phones usher in China's cashless society 15 March 2017
Via The Times

The Dark Side to Cashless Payments Economy. What they don't tell you?
Cashless payments are still a recent form of payment beyond the online world as in the hard world we live in. But if we are heading rapidly towards some sort of New World Order scenario where governments make cash illegal, the need for cash will not disappear. The Governments will just end up creating a black market. If we then end up in a world where there’s no longer any spare change, how do charity collectors or the homeless or beggars on the street or street artists and musicians and small new business set ups get by and those that live on the margins of societies such as gypsies.? Issue them with card readers?
These latest headlines demonstrate that for every new technology there will always be something developed that can hack into that technology and do whatever it wants, and we are still in the very early stages of Cashless Payment Adoption.
Swedish Man mugged via cashless payment app via Heat Street
Dismay over Cambridge Cashless Pay and Display Car Parks 29 March 2017 via Cambridge News
Samsung Pay hack lets attackers skim cards to make fraudulent payments 9 Aug 2016 Via The Verge

How does the Cashless Society fit in with Bible Prophecy?
As stated in many previous articles the Beast System is crucially mentioned in the Bok of Revelation in Revelation 13. What we are seeing developing you could say is just modern day society evolving into it's next technological phase removing the need for cash in our society and moving towards a brighter and braver new world?. Flipping the coin reveals a more conspiracy loaded theory that the cashless payment system is all part of a larger scenario where every detail of our lives will be recorded and monitored. The Cashless Payment System is just another form of Surveillance.
It's the way it seems to be forcibly introduced in some countries by mainly Governments, with very little say or input from the public at large, seems to suggest that the benefits that cashless brings to the man on the street is far outweighed by the benefits that a cashless system brings to major institutions and ultimately Central Governments in their ability to monitor our every move. There seems to ultimately be a darker side to this cashless payment system that most who adopt it are not really aware of but choose to ignore the consequences in order to gain the hip and cool benefits.
Those who are unable or unwilling to adopt any form of cashless payment system in the utter could become marginalised as a result and as mentioned in Revelation 13:17
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

So is the cashless payment system possibly the "Mark" mentioned in Revelation 13? Personally I think the Mark is as stated many times before a "spiritual" mark and identifier that will not take the form of say Biometrics or an RFID chip or similar. BUT the Beast System I think will be digital which is what the Cashless Payment system is based on, in some shape or form. What we could be seeing here is the precursor and early stages to a system or society where initially cash becomes illegal then cards or mobile payments will go the same way and some form of compulsory chip or identifier (implantable or not) will become the universal norm. To gain the chip you need to show a religious affiliation to that person mentioned in the Prophetic Revelation 13, so the mark is not the chip itself but the thought (forehead) and actions (hand) that a particular person adopts, the technology is just the means to access the system including Digital ID and Cashless Payment System.

Those who do not worship the Beast which will include Christians (if we are still here) will be denied access to the cashless payment system or any other corresponding ID systems which will result in those people being marginalised and living on the edge of society and having to create their own black market economy. These people would be easy targets for persecution or worse, which is what the system in Revelation 13 is designed to bring about.

So is the emerging Cashless Payment System something to be concerned about. Initially, no the benefits will far outweigh any shortcomings. BUT as more people get onboard it will become apparent further down the line that we have just subjected ourselves to yet another measure of surveillance just like cookies on websites, and returning to the more anonymous cash will not be an option!

The Cashless Society and Revelation Prophecy

How Cashless Payments fit in with Revelation Prophecy?

This article is a Part 2 to an original article The Orwellian Cashless society is getting closer? My personal experience! This looks at a more recent personal experience and what I think is a sign of what is heading our way in the not too distant future.

The famous Bible quote that even Non Believers are familiar with in the form of Revelation 13 describes The Beast System that will separate those who are part of the system and those who are not. Those who are not, will be marginalised and will exist on the edge of society. I´ve thought about this a lot recently and everybody knows that this Beast system is designed to marginalise Christians and in my opinion it´s starting to happen now with the rapidly accelerating cashless society that is being thrust upon us.

The Future Cashless Society and Revelation Prophecy



Revelation 13:16-17
16. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

The Guardian in a recent article about The Future Cashless Society had this to say

"The head of Apple, Tim Cook, says all payments could soon be via smartphone apps. But there’s a sinister side to this vision, that would lead to us losing our freedom"

My personal experience No2.
A cheap supermarket in my area has recently closed down with not much notice which seems to be an emerging trend these days, the only real other alternative that is of Supermarket size instead of corner store size is a Store beginning with W that is a bit on the expensive side and to be honest is not my scene at all, but left with no alternative I go there on occasion. This is also happening with Bank Branches. Again similar to the last experience there are about a dozen all new shiny cashless checkout machines that take Card or Mobile Payments ONLY. If you are paying by cash you have to go to a normal till and the queue for this can be long at times and only half are manned. What is annoying yet again only a handful of people are paying via Card or Mobile, but again cash is being squeezed out of the equation very gradually. It just looks like a deliberate attempt to get you to ditch cash and go the faster cashless route. So what am I doing? You guessed it, I will continue stubbornly to use cash for smaller items until there is no other way to pay for it.

Where we are heading?
For stores and banks, cashless is cheaper, involves less handling, needs no transportation, restocking of notes and change and doesn´t wear out. Sweden is quietly leading the way in this ID and Cashless Society Revolution where even the homeless and beggars on the streets now use and take plastic. India is also making inroads with this form of payment and is following Sweden´s model. Many other countries are also making inroads into this form of payment becoming 100% reality. On the surface it all sounds great, smaller wallets, faster payments, no bulky change, instantly convertible when you are travelling, quicker supermarket checkouts, skipping past people like me who are paying by old traditional cash.

The Surveillance Nature of Cashless
Yes the future looks great, and it´s called "Cashless" but it does come with a sinister side. Using cashless payments does leave a trail, a digital trail of information that reveals your sometimes very personal habits. At present people don´t worry about the uses to which that information could one day be put, if not by authoritarian governments here or abroad, now or in the future, then by hackers. But with the second Yahoo Account hack to the value of 1bn being a reality, it is becoming blatantly clear that this form of payment is not without it´s severe disadvantages. When you lose cash you just lose the physical amount you had in your wallet. When you lose money in a cashless society, your whole account can be wiped out in the blink of an eye.

Sacrifice of Freedom and Spending Habits and Budgeting
You also sacrifice a lot of freedom that you have with cash which is Anonymous with a Capital A and leaves no trail apart from when you withdraw it from the cash machine. Finally cash is tangible, it´s a hard copy, if your wallet is empty you realise you have no money. With cashless you just wave a card in the air, insert in a reader or wave your mobile and it gives a feeling that you have unlimited funds which money does not give, when in fact you still have a finite supply as before. This convenience is designed to turn people into spending machines if you are not careful.

The Cashless Society and Bible Prophecy.
Which brings me back to my original though whilst standing in a Supermarket that begins with W. The Future Cashless Society is getting closer every day with some countries near or over 90% of payments are made cashless. 100% is not far off and this form of payment reminds me of the Beast System which very clearly looks to be a digital cashless economy. If you are cashless, you can buy or sell, if you are not, then you are on the fringes of society and marginalised. I liken cash payments today as the Christian form of payment and Cashless as the Beast System. That´s the way it feels to me, it remains to be seen whether this actually is the system mentioned in Revelation, or whether it will be something else. This new system is not geared up to the consumer, it is ultimately geared up to the Big Banks, Big Corporates, Big Governments and ultimately the New World Order that this will seamlessly fit into mentioned in the Agenda 2030 which is where we are obviously heading.

Conclusion
The ultimate aim of Revelation 13 is to shut out Christians and as mentioned in the video I strongly feel that this will lead to an alternative black market economy and also true believers going underground and going back to the Old Original Church that was mentioned many times in the Bible all those thousands of years ago and not the current multitude of Church denominations and buildings which we see today. This not Prophecy on my part, nor Dreams and Visions but what is becoming increasing reality with each passing day.