Big changes ahead in Canada's banking system

The shift towards a cashless society has already begun

A totally branchless bank already exists in Canada

Cash will no longer circulate, and without a microchip card,

you won't be able to have access to your bank account.

The newspapers recently told us that Canada's banks will start, in 1998, a big drive to eliminate paper money and cheques, and will install a cashless society, with electronic money and branchless banks. This drive will be accompanied by a publicity campaign to regain prestige and to justify these changes because, as one chairman of the big five Canadian banks complained, "bank-bashing is Canadians' favorite sport." Canadians know there is obviously something wrong with the banks (the first thing that comes to mind is their record profits -$7.5 billion in 1997 - and their outrageous service fees), but what banks have in store for us, Canadians, in the next few years, is completely unacceptable, since it will lead to a complete control over the individual.

The Dec. 19, 1997 issue of the Toronto Star reported: "As the dizzying pace of change in banking gains speed moving into 1998, expect more foreign bank names over branch doors, less personal service and more electronic banking." Banks pretend they have no choice but to do this in order to be able to compete with foreign financial institutions.

The day before, the same newspaper wrote: "The Royal Bank of Canada will in- crease, by about 70%, the number of its branches that have no-teller service, making it the most aggressive big bank in cutting out the human element in transaction processing."...Toronto-Dominion Bank's Senior VP of national sales, Brian Haier, said that "an overall shift away from tellers is inevitable."

The Jan. 10, 1998 issue of the Montreal daily La Presse reported: "Banks' physical premises will disappear, and before 2002, 50% of the present bank agencies will be nothing more than memories. Cash will become a thing of the past. One will rely more and more upon technique, but our vulnerability will increase accordingly." And there are other sources who say that banks want cash and branches to disappear as early as this year.

Canada's first branchless bank launched

Early in 1997, Citizens Bank of Canada, based in Vancouver, became the first totally branchless bank in Canada, with no lineups, no waiting, no tellers, and no branches. Instead, customers do all their banking over the telephone or computer, or by using television or an automated teller machine to conduct their transactions. Computers and telephones (like Bell's Vista 350) that are equipped with special devices to read microchip cards, are already available to allow you to do banking transactions without leaving your home. The new bank is owned by Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, Canada's largest credit union, which also owns Citizens Trust. The bank is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Its President and Chief Executive Officer, Linda Crompton, said the decision by Citizens Bank to have a branchless operation is a sign of the future. "We believe that over time we will change the face of banking in this country." In the United States, USAA Federal Savings, a branchless bank in San Antonio, Texas, was named "the best bank in America" in 1995 by Money Magazine.

It is obvious that it costs less to run a bank without the high overhead of having a big branch network, so such a branchless bank will then be able to offer better rates for loans, and it is already giving higher interest on savings accounts (4%). Then, in order to offer the same rates and still keep their customers, other banks will be forced to operate the same way.

Banks want to replace legal tender

This will mean that the only way you will be able to have access to your bank account, and withdraw money from it, will be through a microchip card. Cash will no longer circulate. (It will be on display only in museums.) The only form of payment accepted will be electronic money. Those who are unaware of the dangers of this electronic money system might think it is an improvement, since one will no longer need to carry cash with oneself. But the reality is quite different, since the Financiers want to use the electronic form of payment as a way to control people.

Paper money remains the handiest way of payment, since you don't need a computer to accept payments. (Just try to pay with a debit card or withdraw money from an automated teller machine when there is no electricity...) Contrary to paper money, which is an anonymous means of payment, banks and governments will know everything about you with these "smart cards", not only about all that you buy or sell, but also about all of the rest of your life, since these cards will be embedded with a microchip that will contain all of the personal files of an individual identity, citizenship, medical files, driver's licence, income taxes, passport, etc. All of this clearly confirms the prophecy of Saint John in the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse, 13:16-17): without this microchip, which will eventually be implanted underneath the skin (the "Mark of the Beast", the number 666), "no one will be able to buy or sell." The Bible also states that he who wants to remain faithful to Christ cannot accept this Mark.

Cash or paper money is the only form of legal tender that can circulate in our country, but banks want to eliminate it and replace it with their illegal, fraudulent electronic money system. Microchip cards are not legal tender! Sovereign governments of every nation, through their central bank (in Canada, the Bank of Canada), should be the only one allowed to create the money for the nation, but private banks, through a huge confidence trick, have obtained that the money they create out of nothing is accepted as good as cash in any country. (Banks don't need to print paper money; they just need to write figures in a ledger, or enter digits in a computer.)

Governments must not be the accomplices of the banks and allow them to eliminate cash. If they do so, the governments will then be controlled by these private corporations which are called chartered banks, that were never elected by Canadians. No honest citizen or person of good will should allow this to happen. There is too much at stake here, for it would mean the end of all of our freedoms.

Smart cards: not a smart thing

For those who think that microchip cards are so great, here is some information that will make you think... and realize that using these "smart" cards is not really very smart. The following information is taken from the October 3, 1997 issue of La Presse, in a column on new computer technologies:

Since last December, passengers in the buses of Sherbrooke, Que., can pay their bus fares with a new plastic card, embedded with a microchip and a very thin antenna. What is new about this is that people don't even need to insert the card in a reader. The device can read the information on the card from a distance of more than two feet, and deduct the amount of the fare from the card automatically, the information being transferred through radio waves. You don't even need to take out your card; the information can be read by the device, even if the card is in your pocket!

There are some companies who plan to produce similar cards to be used as electronic wallets. The only difference with the present microchip cards is that you won't need to take out your card to pay, as long as you are close enough to the reader.

Here is the trap: even if these cards still require a Personal Identification Number (PIN) to withdraw money, just like present cards with a black magnetic stripe, the manufacturers of this card still admit that the card's serial number can still be read by the device, without its owner's consent, provided he is close enough to the reader! In other words, all the money could be removed from your card without your knowledge, and you would not even know it is happening! This is a card that is not so handy, after all... What is more, these manufacturers maintain that Canadian companies have already disguised "radiowave" cards as ordinary cards with magnetic stripes, which means that one cannot even be secure with these cards...

Cash, or paper money, is definitely the safest form of payment. As for electronic money, just consider this: this form of money exists only in the form of electronic information; it is not written on a piece of paper anywhere, so when a mistake occurs, it is often very hard to prove that money was stolen from your account! In fact, it is much easier, and less dangerous, for thieves thieves to steal money from computers than to risk their lives and steal paper money. Professional hackers can have access from their own homes to computers located hundreds of miles away (even to computers that are supposed to be the most secure), and it is extremely hard to retrace them, once they intruded into another computer.

No, banks have absolutely no right to force people to accept electronic money as the only means of payment. Banks will offer discounts and special advantages to those who accept the new smart cards, but just don't accept them.

Stick with cash; otherwise, you can say "bye-bye" to all of your freedoms!

Alain Pilote