Visa

Cashless Society Alert: Visa Will Be Giving Up To $500,000 To Restaurants That Go ‘100% Cashless’

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– Cashless Society Alert: Visa Will Be Giving Up To $500,000 To Restaurants That Go ‘100% Cashless’:

The push toward a cashless society is becoming more of a shove.  Before today I had never heard of “The Visa Cashless Challenge”, but after reading about it I have to say that I am quite alarmed.  Visa is trying to “encourage” businesses to go cashless, and one of the ways that they will be doing this is by “awarding up to $500,000 to 50 eligible US-based small business food service owners who commit to joining the 100% cashless quest”.  The food industry is still one of the last bastions where cash is used very heavily, and so it makes sense that Visa would want to target that segment.  Of course the more people that use cards to pay for meals, the more money that Visa will make.

When I go to restaurants, I almost always use cash, and I know a lot of other people that very much prefer to use cash in those situations as well.  But if Visa has their way, soon all of us will be forced to use some form of digital payment instead.  The following is an excerpt from the press release that Visa issued about this new “challenge”…

Read moreCashless Society Alert: Visa Will Be Giving Up To $500,000 To Restaurants That Go ‘100% Cashless’

Visa Begins Bribing Merchants To Stop Taking Cash

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– Visa Begins Bribing Merchants To Stop Taking Cash:

The war on cash is escalating. A big driver isn’t central banks who want to be able to inflict negative interest rates on savers, or Treasuries who see cash transactions as hiding revenues from their tax collectors, but the payment networks that want to kill cash (and checks!) as competitors to their oh so terrific (and fee-gouging) credit and debit cards.

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Russia To Create Own National Payment System In ‘Bid To Reduce Dependence On The West’

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Related info:

– Visa, Mastercard Block US-Sanctioned Russian Banks

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– Russia To Create Own National Payment System In “Bid To Reduce Dependence On The West” (ZeroHedge, March 27, 2014):

The more the West attempts to “isolate” Russia and pushes it away from its “core values” and of course the US Dollar, the more Russia will seek the safety of a non-dollar based system. We have previously described how Putin has been scrambling to enmesh Russia in tight bilateral commodity-based trade with both China and India, and now it is Russia’s turn to announce it would seek its own “national payment settlement system” following last week’s surprising and unmandated service halts by both Visa and MasterCard, which as Vladimir Putin said earlier today, will be a “bid to reduce economic dependence on the West.”

Read moreRussia To Create Own National Payment System In ‘Bid To Reduce Dependence On The West’

Visa, Mastercard Block US-Sanctioned Russian Banks

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Mastercard-Visa

– ?Visa, Mastercard block US-sanctioned Russian banks (RT, March 21, 2014):

International payment system Mastercard has stopped serving clients of seven Russian lenders, after the US issued sanctions against it regarding Russia’s position over the Ukrainian turmoil.

Rossiya Bank was blocked by both – Master Card and Visa, and with the latter also cutting ties with Sobinbank, SMP Bank and Investcapitalbank.

Seven Russian banks are involved in the suspension, according to Timur Batyrev, the head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank of Russia.

The blockade came without warning, Rossiya bank said.

Read moreVisa, Mastercard Block US-Sanctioned Russian Banks

Top Secret Visa Data Center

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– Top secret Visa data center banks on security, even has moat (USA Today, Mar 25, 2012):

SOMEWHERE ON THE EASTERN SEABOARD – Prisons are easier to enter than Visa’s top-secret Operations Center East, its biggest, newest and most advanced U.S. data center.

The 8-acre facility looks like any other industrial park in a sleepy suburb. But the serene setting masks hundreds of cameras and a crack team of former military personnel. Hydraulic bollards beneath the road leading to the OCE can be quickly raised to stop an intruding car going 50 mph. Any speed faster, and the car can’t navigate a hairpin turn, sending it into a drainage pond that functions as a modern-day moat.

The data center resembles a fortress, with dogged attention to detail. It can withstand earthquakes and hurricane-force winds of up to 170 mph. A 1.5-million-gallon storage tank cools the system. Diesel generators onsite have enough power, in the event of an outage, to keep the center running for nine days. They generate enough electricity for 25,000 households.

Once you get clearance from a guard station, get an OK from a roving security guy in a golf cart, and surrender a photo and fingerprint inside, the adventure begins.

Read moreTop Secret Visa Data Center