From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Tue, 3 May 94 11:08:23 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Digital Cash
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.05.9405031211.A25894-b100000@panix.com>
Message-ID: <9405031805.AA29043@ah.com>
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>Something overlooked in the real world that encourages the maintenance of
>private payment systems (cash) is th existence of a large number of people
>with bad credit.

Bad credit or no credit.  Having no record in the credit databases is
as good as have negative entries, for many purposes.

>About 20% of the US population has neither credit cards nor checking
>accounts.  Some of this is because of personal preference but a lot of it
>is because these people can't handle something as abstract as a checking
>account without wrecking it.  

A significant part of this is that banks have simply moved out of a
lot of neighboorhoods, and checking accounts are simply not easily
available.  Many people grow up without interaction with the banking
system, and therefore don't get electronified.

Eric