[bluevolt]

PM modi hinting on real estate surgical strike while giving speech in Goa.

According to him, if you have properties on the name of your relatives. You gotta explain things.

[asingh1977]

Yesterday afternoon my SBI debit card was declined at many outlets. ICICI debit card was working fine.

[rdhawan15]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

My dad's an officer with one of the biggest PSU bank and even since the ban came into effect, not one person has deposited more than 2.5 lakhs yet. I am not sure how effective this is going to be and I am also of the opinion that the big fish got a smell of it much before mere mortals did.

They are waiting on the sidelines in a hope that something better may turn up for them in the next fortnight. At this point, they are finding it difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened to their cash.

[khoj]

Tune in to the live transmission of PM's speech at an election rally right now.

He has just now declared open war on Benami properties as the next action. It is less of an election speech and almost entirely about the current goings on and the steps leading up to the same, very interesting & informative.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by LithiumSunset

Of course it's the poor who have to pay the price, in this case valuable time away from paying work. But ask any commoner in your surroundings if he or she thinks this is something that's bad and you'll get a resounding rejoinder. If anything it's our duty to help out those around us.

Those who are really poor are usually simple minded with their priorities focused on basic necessities and they don't spend their time thinking about implications of such an exercise on larger society. That's precisely the reason why that section of the society will continue to be a convenient vote bank for populist moves from across the political spectrum.

Originally Posted by Sawyer

I know, it is becoming clear to me that nothing will clear the confusion among the easily confused, because clear thinking does not seem to be common.

Leaving the confusion related to legalities of such a transaction (using old notes) aside, what's your take on the implications of allowing this everywhere - where hoarders can exchange their 'blank' money to 'white' (let's say high value white goods, furnitures, gold etc)?

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by Simhi

In my opinion, government should try to move towards cashless economy. In this regard, government should announce a limit on cash transactions which are legal. For example, any cash transaction above Rs. 25000 should be declared illegal.

While this idea is good, we are far from being a cashless economy. First thing the government needs to do is incentivize usage of cards, by abolishing the surcharges that come with it. This will ensures merchants don't have valid reason to discourage their customers who want to use cards and it will also encourage people to use it everywhere because customer don't lose anything.

[Su-47]

Perhaps things are easier in this part of the town - my wife was able to withdraw money from the HSR Branch of ICICI after queueing up for 1.5 hrs on Friday. She didn't call her relationship manager or ask for prioritization of any sort. So yeah, the wait is long, but is manageable.

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

My dad's an officer with one of the biggest PSU bank and even since the ban came into effect, not one person has deposited more than 2.5 lakhs yet. I am not sure how effective this is going to be and I am also of the opinion that the big fish got a smell of it much before mere mortals did.

The person who was ahead of my wife in the queue had lots of bundles and she overheard a number: 30L. When my wife thanked the cashier saying it must be tiring for them, the cashier reacted that there were even bigger deposits through the day. So, I infer that some people are depositing big money as well.

[earthian]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

First thing the government needs to do is incentivize usage of cards, by abolishing the surcharges that come with it.

This has already been done:
Quote extract from RBI circular:
Levying fees on debit card transactions by merchants - There are instances where merchant establishments levy fee as a percentage of the transaction value as charges on customers who are making payments for purchase of goods and services through debit cards. Such fee are not justifiable and are not permissible as per the bilateral agreement between the acquiring bank and the merchants and therefore calls for termination of the relationship of the bank with such establishments.
Source: RBI Circular

Just finished hearing PM's speech at Goa. He has promised more fireworks in the days to come, as predicted. So what would they be?

[APV]

Originally Posted by asingh1977

Yesterday afternoon my SBI debit card was declined at many outlets. ICICI debit card was working fine.

I ran into similar issue yesterday evening at an ATM, ICICI card working & SBI card declining transaction with message - 'Incorrect Pin', it turned out that I was indeed typing the pin incorrectly. Last thing to happen after standing in queue for 1 hour .
Luckily I realised the mistake immediately & entered correct pin & came out with 100s.

[Jeroen]

On the cashless society, Sweden is, currently, the nation getting closest.

I travel to Sweden on a very regular basis and I never ever have Swedish currency on me anymore, havent for years. Strictly plastic, from a cup of coffee to a metro ticket, anything


https://www.theguardian.com/business...leading-europe


Jeroen

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

Leaving the confusion related to legalities of such a transaction (using old notes) aside, what's your take on the implications of allowing this everywhere - where hoarders can exchange their 'blank' money to 'white' (let's say high value white goods, furnitures, gold etc)?

Except for gold, it doesn't make much economic sense for a hoarder to do this. Where will you keep all the washing machines and refrigerators, or even cars, you buy in exchange for these notes?! And when you go to resell them, how much will you lose on resale? - a large percentage, probably bigger than the tax you may pay on these if you deposit the notes in the bank. And remember, the "best" hoarders have crores in these notes - try buying and storing crores of white goods and figure out how impossible are the logistics.
Anything that the black money notes are exchanged for has to be as compact as them, as easily exchangeable as them in future, and hold their value to the extent that these do.
And for gold, anyone buying gold is doing the same thing as depositing into the bank - leaving a very visible trail of this action to the taxman, because the only jewellers that will accept these notes are the honest ones paying their taxes, and keeping the records that include this trail.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by earthian

This has already been done:
Quote extract from RBI circular:
Levying fees on debit card transactions by merchants - There are instances where merchant establishments levy fee as a percentage of the transaction value as charges on customers who are making payments for purchase of goods and services through debit cards. Such fee are not justifiable and are not permissible as per the bilateral agreement between the acquiring bank and the merchants and therefore calls for termination of the relationship of the bank with such establishments.
Source: RBI Circular

Not quite. That's from 2013, and it only talks about debit cards. What about credit cards? And about those surcharges on fuel purchases?

There is some gateway/interchange fee the merchants have to pay. I am not sure if it's a flat fee or some percentage of transaction value or may be a combination of both. From my limited understanding, this fee is basically to cover the associated risk and cost due to fraudulent transactions and charge backs. Note that, e-commerce transactions are generally considered high-risk compared to physical card-present transactions. People who are more knowledgable on this matter can throw some light.

What i am suggesting is that government should, may be subsidize these fees, so merchants don't pass them on to customers, or have some other incentives to merchants.

[ach1lles]

I heard someone bought 72 iPhone 7s.

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Where will you keep all the washing machines and refrigerators, or even cars, you buy in exchange for these notes?!

[pedrolourenco]

Originally Posted by Simhi

In my opinion, government should try to move towards cashless economy.

And a friend just told me that a lot of shops have now started demanding 5% extra for using cards. So much for cashless economy.

[Sawyer]

One needs to eliminate the reasons why people have black money - more important than trying to plug all the ways they can obtain it.

Some reasons for the need, which are the root causes of the evil:

One, the tax rates are so high that the risk is worth the reward. Not much more needs to be done in this regard; in 1978, at the time of last demonetisation, IT rates were 97% at the maximum range.

Two, the tax payer should perceive the value he receives from the tax he pays. This is a big issue in India today - there is so much nonsense that my tax rupee is used for, including the salaries of government employees who deliver very little value for the salary they get. And for their fancy cars now, and foreign trips and in turn they give us the lousy public infrastructure the country has today. The thought then is - why should I pay tax to support this nonsense? So, that has to change and that will take a long time.

Three - demands of corruption that cannot be met by credit cards. Again, a very large social evil that is created by all of us, because bribery necessarily also needs a briber.

Four - the funding of elections that needs truckloads of black money today.

I may have missed some root causes, but it is more important to attend to these than to attend to running after every symptom. Because if the root causes are not fixed, we are clever enough to jugaad a new loophole for all the ones that are closed.

Originally Posted by ach1lles

I heard someone bought 72 iPhone 7s.

Foolish man. All he achieved was about Rs 50 lakhs - peanuts. And he will not be able to get more than 25 lakhs when he tries to sell them, as he will soon find out. Buyers will be clever Indians, not fools.