Switzerland joins Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia as European countries looking to make it a right to hold cold, hard cash.

The right to use Swiss franc banknotes and coins will be enshrined in Switzerland’s constitution after voters on Sunday backed a measure designed to safeguard the use of cash in society.

  • cattywampas@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    1 day ago

    What are the details on this law and its enforcement? Because surely it wouldn’t apply to some sectors, like online shopping. So I’m assuming only brick and mortar locations?

    • Pamasich@kbin.earth
      1·
      17 hours ago

      The title and description are actually wrong. Haven’t checked the article itself though. We did not vote on the right to use cash.

      The original proposal was about the following two changes to the constitution:

      • Specifying that a double majority is required to change the national currency to something other than the Swiss Franc
      • Specifying that the government is responsible that there’s always enough cash available

      That was rejected however, and what we actually accepted is the government’s counter proposal, which is to move the existing two laws referenced in the original proposal to the constitution instead.

      The laws in question were:

      • The Swiss Franc is the Swiss currency.
      • The Swiss National Bank is responsible for the cash supply.

      That’s what we actually accepted, and it’s literally just a legal reinforcement of the status quo, making them harder to change than they were before. No practical changes, as they were already laws beforehand.

    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
      21·
      1 day ago

      In Japan you can pay for online shopping with cash. The online store give you a code that ypu can use in a convenience store and pay with cash there.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      I’m assuming only brick and mortar locations?

      Even that can be a problem, here (Denmark) when you charge your EV, you generally have multiple options, either with credit card directly, or credit card through an app, or Mobile pay (A widely popular local to Denmark bank owned payment system), or with a “charging token”, which also works through an app, but works for a lot of different charging stations.

      Common for all the options are that they are digital, and AFAIK none of them take cash, and I bet it would be a major pain for the companies to do that. And I have never heard anyone wanting it.

    • fiberwoman15@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      Good question. I don’t know the answer. The article says this was just voted into law this past Sunday. It doesn’t go into detail about what sectors are affected. I’m guessing more information about it will come out over time.