“I Am Sorry, We No Longer Accept Cash”

"I am sorry, we no longer accept cash" – Bank Teller, Chase Bank in San Diego

Ummm…excuse me? Perhaps there is some mistake and I had walked into the Chipotle next door. As I stood there trying to make a deposit, the bank teller notified me that as of February, Chase bank had a new policy that they would no longer accept cash deposits into someone else’s account. Even a few weeks later, I am still trying to wrap my head around this concept. Banks….don’t…accept….cash?

This wasn’t my first negative experience with a bank for the day. I had walked into my local Credit Union at 3:30pm and requested to complete a wire transfer. They informed me that it was past the deadline for that day, I would have to come back tomorrow. In an attempt to avoid spending more time at the bank, I asked if I could do all the paperwork and have it go out tomorrow. “No, you can’t do that. We don’t have the systems in place for that. You will have to just come back tomorrow”. "Tomorrow" was actually Saturday so I would really have to come back on Monday.

Annoyed, I decided I would just go make a cash deposit. Easy, right? Wrong. There was a line of 10 people to see the bank teller so I figured I would just go to the ATM. The transaction I needed to complete was for $1,100 but I was notified at the ATM of my withdrawal limit of $500 per day so, back inside. After 20 minutes of waiting in line, I was finally able to access my money after filling out a piece of paper. And with this accomplished, I was finally on my way to Chase bank.

It’s 2014, are we really still using pieces of paper?

“I would like to make a deposit please” and that was when I found, Chase bank no longer accepts cash deposits. Now, I can understand this policy for large amounts and you can’t really blame them. This policy is their attempt to prevent money laundering or more bluntly, an attempt to protect themselves against government fines. They want an electronic trail of transactions to go back to if regulators request it. With the $1.5 billion dollar fine HSBC received for assisting in laundering money, banks are on high alert. Unable to make a cash deposit, she told me I had two options. I could use a debit card or could write a check. My debit card had a limit of $1,000 per day on charges so that would not work and the check would take 3-5 days to clear. She told me to call my bank and ask them to increase the limit on my debit card so I could complete the full transaction. So, I went back outside, spent another 30 minutes being transferred from one person to another and finally, I was able to have my limit raised. I walked back into the bank and completed the transaction.

Total time: 1.5 hours

Distance driven: 10 – 15 miles

I had wasted almost an hour and a half of my day and just to complete what I considered a simple transaction. My frustration quickly turned into a quick burst of rejuvenation. All the problems that I went through today, are problems that millions of people go through every day. While my inconvenience was rather small, it wasn’t a matter of life or death if I sent the transfer that day,for many people, it really could be and every day, it is.

And then, there was Bitcoin. Bitcoin gives you the ability to access your funds instantly from anywhere, at anytime. If you want to send $1 or $100,000, you can do it simply by logging in and pressing send. The process of sending with bitcoin is just as easy as sending an email. The person receiving that transfer, can access it instantly as well. You don’t have to worry about bank hours and you don’t have to pay $30 wire fees. Simply put, Bitcoin provides you instant access to your money.

I am not a radical libertarian but I am a big believer that I should be able to access, send, and receive my own money, whenever I want without a middleman providing me a list of rules I must follow and without limitations.

Banks are not stupid. They realize technology exists or could exist to make the banking process easier, they just have had a monopoly for so long that there is no real reason to innovate and develop faster, cheaper and easier banking solutions. In the past, the only alternative to the banking system has been stuffing money in your mattress but now for the first time in modern history, a technology exists that can compete with the underlying infrastructure. I don’t believe Bitcoin will ever*“put the banks out of business”* as some seem to think, but I do believe that banks will simply feel the pressure and either adopt the technology that Bitcoin offers or they will attempt to develop their own technology. Either way, Bitcoin technology is bringing change to an industry that has failed to innovate for decades.

Every day, people ask me, what value does Bitcoin even have? Bitcoin has value because it presents improvements to problems that have existed for many years and have so far gone unaddressed. Problems that affect millions of people every year here in the United States and even more abroad.

So the next time you arrive at your bank at 5:31pm and they closed at 5:30pm, or you are standing in line to fill out a piece of paper to ask for permission to access your money, or the next time you pay $30 to send a wire transfer.

Ask yourself, would never having to do this again be valuable?