Daft Old Duffer returns with more chat about thumbprints and their part in the future of financial transactions. Ed
The unease many feel over the idea of children using their thumbprint in place of money, prompts me to offer my take on what I think will be the way we will pay for things in the future.
I am not any sort of expert in this field – these are just my thoughts based on what I’ve heard and read and deduced. No doubt you will tell me if I’m writing rubbish.
We’re fast approaching the time when telling children how we used to carry around small packs of varie – coloured paper to represent different amounts of cash will provoke hoots of disbelieving laughter. And cheques too are vanishing.
Many business’s – including shop chains – are already refusing to accept them (and cheque guarantee cards soon to be abolished – Ed).
So the time is close upon us when the only means for paying across larger amounts will be by credit or debit card or via the Internet.
Leaving only the cash needed for small transactions such as buying that paper or chocolate bar.
Yet for this too, there already exists a ‘cash card’. Restricted to the paying out of a pound or two at a time they are, hopefully, untempting to thieves.
The only reason they are not already in use is the reluctance of shopkeepers to pay for the necessary ‘swipe’ machine.
But the time will surely come when our kids will, just as with coloured paper money, find it hard to believe that once everyone carried around in their pocket or purse random bits of metal.
And cash machines will disappear from our high streets as suddenly as they appeared.
So – for a while we will manage with two cards, one for major transactions and the other for minor.
It won’t stop there however. Eventually it will be a case of thumbprint or DNA breath or under the skin microchip.
Or some method we haven’t heard of yet but which is already being tested.
Images: Holdup graffiti by Jeremy Burgin under CC BY-SA 2.0
Thumbprint by Shauna Alexander under CC BY-SA 2.0
