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One of Australia's largest banks is ditching cash at all of its branches and shifting entirely to 'digital-only' services.
Macquarie Bank customers will no longer be able to access over-the-counter services or order new chequebooks from May 20. The bank's automated telephone banking service and chequebooks for new cash management accounts have already been slashed. All cash and cheque transactions are gone, and Macquarie customers' access to NAB ATMs will end by November 1. The announcement is the latest hit for those who prefer to pay with cash, to avoid records being kept of all their transactions. In April, thousands took part in a 'Cash Day Out' protest and rushed to withdraw money from ATMS to protest against Australia's slow but inexorable transition to a digital-only country. Macquarie cited a shift in customers’ banking habits as the reason behind their change towards digital-only banking. Macquarie cited a shift in customers’ banking habits as the reason behind their change towards digital-only banking. The bank said it is 'committed to transitioning to completely digital payments' as it's a 'safe, quick, and more convenient' way to transact. Banks also claim that transporting and distributing cash for a diminishing amount of users was costly, despite the colossal profits made by major banks. Finance expert Sarah Wells saying the move 'is the next step [towards] a cashless society.' 'My biggest concern is when one starts the rest will follow,' she told Daily Mail Australia at the time. ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and NAB have already begun phasing out cheques while Bankwest prepares to shut down 45 branches in Western Australia by October. Ms Wells said this is a move Macquarie 'may wish to reconsider'. 'For some businesses this may cause them to need to change banks,' she said. Businesses bear the cost of having electronic payment machines, and must pass on a fraction of every transaction to the bank rather than keeping it all. Banks refusing to use cash effectively force their business customers into the same, as there is nowhere to deposit cash payments. That particularly hurts hospitality businesses who report a decline in tips when people pay by card. Those who want cash retained in the economy were urged to withdraw cash at ATMs across the country for 'Cash Out Day' last month to protest the nation's haste towards wholly cashless transactions, and show there is still demand for notes and coins. The campaign was promoted on the Facebook page of Cash Welcome, a non-profit group campaigning against a cashless economy. It saw customers lining up outside the big four banks - Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac, and ANZ - to withdraw cash. Campaign manager for Cash Welcome, Jason Bryce, told Daily Mail Australia the event was a 'huge success' and said banks need to listen to Aussies who don't want a cashless society. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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Several student groups that have organized protest “camps” at major US universities have received money from activist billionaire George Soros, the New York Post reported on Friday.
Protests that began earlier this month at Columbia University in New York City have since spread to 40 universities and colleges in the US and Canada, including Harvard, Yale and UC Berkeley. The Columbia protest was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Within Our Lifetime. All three have received funding from Soros’s Open Society Foundations through a network of non-profits, the Post claimed, citing its own research. Other major donors to the student groups were identified as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and former Wall Street banker Felice Gelman. None of the groups responded to the Post’s requests for comment. The outlet also named three “fellows” of the Soros-funded US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), paid several thousand dollars to organize campaigns on campus. Two of them are former interns for congressional Democrats. Activists have demanded that universities “divest” from companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, as well as Lockheed Martin, that have contracts with the Israeli government. They also want the US government to stop giving any more money to Israel, citing its “genocide” of the Palestinians in Gaza. Leader of the pro-Israel group Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, blamed the protests on “campus proxies” of Iran in an interview with MSNBC this week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that “anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities” in the US and were calling for “the annihilation of Israel.” He compared the protesters to German Nazis in the 1930s and said their actions had to be “condemned and condemned unequivocally.” Israel sent troops into Gaza after a series of deadly raids by Hamas on October 7 last year, killing an estimated 1,200 Israelis. Netanyahu has vowed to completely destroy the Gaza-based Palestinian group. So far, over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military operation and another 80,000 wounded. Much of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed as well. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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