The Future of Money
I had an experience during my recent visit to Thailand that got me thinking about how difficult it is to access or money. I feel we live in primitive times when it comes to money. We should have easy access to get our cash or spend our money.
I experienced a triple failure in Thailand. I had 3 credit cards while in Thailand and all 3 cards failed me.
Card #1: Lost - we need a system where you can't lose your access to your money
Card #2: Expired - our access should never expire
Card #3: Broken - our access should always work
I did not need 3 cards. One card would have been enough to cover my expenses. It all started when I lost card 1. I went to the ATM and tried to withdraw cash and the card was not there.
I blame the user interface of the ATM. Two days before I had visited the ATM in Thailand and I believe I left my card in the ATM machine. The Thai ATMs work backwards to the ATMs in Malaysia which have a much better user interface.
In Malaysia the ATM first returns your card. You cannot get your cash until you physically take your card. If you have not taken your card after 2 seconds, it beeps at you to remind you plus there is a flashing light.
In Thailand the ATM first returns your cash. You can take your cash and walk away which is how I've been conditioned after living in Malaysia for about two years. The card appears after you have taken your cash and there is no flashing light or beeping noise.
I much prefer the ATMs in the US where you swipe your card. Then you never part with it to begin with. I don't understand why an ATM would want to hold your card unless there are cases where it wants to keep the card.
So now I do not have access to the money on card 1. This is Failure #1.
I tried to use card #2 but it had expired a couple of days ago! This is Failure #2. I can understand why a card needs to have an expiration date. Perhaps they wear out or the software on them gets upgraded so they need to phase out the older programs.
But this is the problem with cards. You have to keep track of them and they expire. They also have to work properly which brings to me Failure #3.
Card 3 has never let me down. I have a line of credit in case of emergencies and this was one. We tried to use card 3 but everywhere we went it got rejected. The card was essentially useless in Thailand for some reason. I logged onto the Internet at a local cyber cafe and checked my account and everything was fine.
Unfortunately I could not use card 3 as an ATM card because I had not set the PIN yet. I checked the web site to see if I could change the PIN but the only way to do it was either to call the bank and they would mail my house the PIN or visit the bank and change it in person or visit the bank's ATM and change it there.
None of these options could help me. I didn't have 10 days to wait for my PIN to arrive via the postal mail (I would have to call home to get the PIN) ... and the bank did not exist in Thailand and neither did their ATMs. So card 3 was useless for paying for things or getting cash.
Card 2 was useless because it expired.
Card 1 wasn't useless yet. I had with me all of the info for each card including the card 16 digit numbers, expiration dates, names on cards, card codes, whether they were Visa or MasterCard, the customer phone numbers, the web sites, etc.
Even though I did not physically have my card I could still give the info to people and they could punch in the numbers or I could still purchase things online. But my hotel did not have a way to pay for rooms online and when they tried to punch in the numbers, it didn't work.
So then I had the idea of logging into Western Union online and sending money to myself. I tried this but when I got to the point of sending the money the web page reported some internal error. You could only send money from a few countries and Thailand was not one of them but I said that I'm sending from the US but perhaps it checked my IP address and knew I was not in the US.
So then I tried to visit Western Union in person and send myself money but they were confused at my request.
WU: Do you want to send or receive?
Me: Both
WU: What?
Me: I want to send money to myself.
WU: Who do you want to send money to?
Me: Me
WU: So you want to receive?
Me: Yes
The conversation went in circles for about 5 minutes. They thought I wanted to send money to someone and receive money from someone. They could not grasp the concept of me sending money to myself so then I pulled out my credit card and that's when they said that I could only send cash.
I didn't understand why. I could send money online with my credit card using the Western Union web site so why couldn't I do it in person?
My bus was leaving for Malaysia at 3 pm and time was running out. I had to get the 700 Baht in time or we would be forced to stay in Thailand another day with a small amount of money for food and not enough money for hotel.
I bought a calling card at 7-11 and called my mother who sent me $50 via the Western Union web site. I had the cash an hour later. I logged into PayPal and sent her the money to reimburse her.
Our crisis had finally ended but my triple failure made me wonder why money access is so hard. I had the money in 3 different accounts but could not access any of them. I was suddenly broke in a foreign country. I felt so helpless. It was very frustrating but I tried to stay calm and not stress about it.
I would love the ability to access my money via my finger prints and a password.
Advantages:
1. Never lose it. Of course the system would need to work with some of the fingers in case you did actually lose some fingers or you got a scar or lost some of your finger prints for some reason.
2. Never expires. Of course we expire eventually but our access would not expire while we're alive. Of course people could still use our dead body for access but they would still need the password.
3. Always works. Why didn't card 3 work in Thailand? I have no idea but a universal money system would solve this problem.
Unfortunately technology like this cannot instantly spread to the entire world overnight. We still have third and forth world countries where the spread of technology is behind the first world.
Actually these third and forth world countries have the opportunity to leap-frog the first-world countries and adopt the latest technologies since they have no infrastructure to support older technologies. An example of this is the Malaysian ID card which has a chip and contains all the info necessary to use for just about anything. One card fits all.
Of course I'm against having all these different cards and would prefer to have an RFID chip implanted in my hand that would replace all of my cards. There are still issues of identity theft to be worked out with the RFID system and it may never go into common use because the idea of inserting a foreign object into our body does not appeal to a lot of people and is probably against some religions. This is why I like bio-metrics. Use our bodies as ID. I don't care if it's a retinal scan, finger prints, voice-print, DNA or whatever. You would still need to remember your password and if the bio-metric scanner failed, you'd still have problems so no system is perfect.
I feel as though I was born 1000 years too early. These are primitive times we live in.
I experienced a triple failure in Thailand. I had 3 credit cards while in Thailand and all 3 cards failed me.
Card #1: Lost - we need a system where you can't lose your access to your money
Card #2: Expired - our access should never expire
Card #3: Broken - our access should always work
I did not need 3 cards. One card would have been enough to cover my expenses. It all started when I lost card 1. I went to the ATM and tried to withdraw cash and the card was not there.
I blame the user interface of the ATM. Two days before I had visited the ATM in Thailand and I believe I left my card in the ATM machine. The Thai ATMs work backwards to the ATMs in Malaysia which have a much better user interface.
In Malaysia the ATM first returns your card. You cannot get your cash until you physically take your card. If you have not taken your card after 2 seconds, it beeps at you to remind you plus there is a flashing light.
In Thailand the ATM first returns your cash. You can take your cash and walk away which is how I've been conditioned after living in Malaysia for about two years. The card appears after you have taken your cash and there is no flashing light or beeping noise.
I much prefer the ATMs in the US where you swipe your card. Then you never part with it to begin with. I don't understand why an ATM would want to hold your card unless there are cases where it wants to keep the card.
So now I do not have access to the money on card 1. This is Failure #1.
I tried to use card #2 but it had expired a couple of days ago! This is Failure #2. I can understand why a card needs to have an expiration date. Perhaps they wear out or the software on them gets upgraded so they need to phase out the older programs.
But this is the problem with cards. You have to keep track of them and they expire. They also have to work properly which brings to me Failure #3.
Card 3 has never let me down. I have a line of credit in case of emergencies and this was one. We tried to use card 3 but everywhere we went it got rejected. The card was essentially useless in Thailand for some reason. I logged onto the Internet at a local cyber cafe and checked my account and everything was fine.
Unfortunately I could not use card 3 as an ATM card because I had not set the PIN yet. I checked the web site to see if I could change the PIN but the only way to do it was either to call the bank and they would mail my house the PIN or visit the bank and change it in person or visit the bank's ATM and change it there.
None of these options could help me. I didn't have 10 days to wait for my PIN to arrive via the postal mail (I would have to call home to get the PIN) ... and the bank did not exist in Thailand and neither did their ATMs. So card 3 was useless for paying for things or getting cash.
Card 2 was useless because it expired.
Card 1 wasn't useless yet. I had with me all of the info for each card including the card 16 digit numbers, expiration dates, names on cards, card codes, whether they were Visa or MasterCard, the customer phone numbers, the web sites, etc.
Even though I did not physically have my card I could still give the info to people and they could punch in the numbers or I could still purchase things online. But my hotel did not have a way to pay for rooms online and when they tried to punch in the numbers, it didn't work.
So then I had the idea of logging into Western Union online and sending money to myself. I tried this but when I got to the point of sending the money the web page reported some internal error. You could only send money from a few countries and Thailand was not one of them but I said that I'm sending from the US but perhaps it checked my IP address and knew I was not in the US.
So then I tried to visit Western Union in person and send myself money but they were confused at my request.
WU: Do you want to send or receive?
Me: Both
WU: What?
Me: I want to send money to myself.
WU: Who do you want to send money to?
Me: Me
WU: So you want to receive?
Me: Yes
The conversation went in circles for about 5 minutes. They thought I wanted to send money to someone and receive money from someone. They could not grasp the concept of me sending money to myself so then I pulled out my credit card and that's when they said that I could only send cash.
I didn't understand why. I could send money online with my credit card using the Western Union web site so why couldn't I do it in person?
My bus was leaving for Malaysia at 3 pm and time was running out. I had to get the 700 Baht in time or we would be forced to stay in Thailand another day with a small amount of money for food and not enough money for hotel.
I bought a calling card at 7-11 and called my mother who sent me $50 via the Western Union web site. I had the cash an hour later. I logged into PayPal and sent her the money to reimburse her.
Our crisis had finally ended but my triple failure made me wonder why money access is so hard. I had the money in 3 different accounts but could not access any of them. I was suddenly broke in a foreign country. I felt so helpless. It was very frustrating but I tried to stay calm and not stress about it.
I would love the ability to access my money via my finger prints and a password.
Advantages:
1. Never lose it. Of course the system would need to work with some of the fingers in case you did actually lose some fingers or you got a scar or lost some of your finger prints for some reason.
2. Never expires. Of course we expire eventually but our access would not expire while we're alive. Of course people could still use our dead body for access but they would still need the password.
3. Always works. Why didn't card 3 work in Thailand? I have no idea but a universal money system would solve this problem.
Unfortunately technology like this cannot instantly spread to the entire world overnight. We still have third and forth world countries where the spread of technology is behind the first world.
Actually these third and forth world countries have the opportunity to leap-frog the first-world countries and adopt the latest technologies since they have no infrastructure to support older technologies. An example of this is the Malaysian ID card which has a chip and contains all the info necessary to use for just about anything. One card fits all.
Of course I'm against having all these different cards and would prefer to have an RFID chip implanted in my hand that would replace all of my cards. There are still issues of identity theft to be worked out with the RFID system and it may never go into common use because the idea of inserting a foreign object into our body does not appeal to a lot of people and is probably against some religions. This is why I like bio-metrics. Use our bodies as ID. I don't care if it's a retinal scan, finger prints, voice-print, DNA or whatever. You would still need to remember your password and if the bio-metric scanner failed, you'd still have problems so no system is perfect.
I feel as though I was born 1000 years too early. These are primitive times we live in.
posted by Patrick Coston at 9:43 PM
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