New Idea – Contactless Payment for Street Musicians / Beggars / Homeless People

I know, nobody wants to deal with them — especially in Berlin it is a constant thing. But what is the difference between them and a streamer on Twitch? None, really — plenty of those are beggars too. OK, they have a little more content to offer than “My name is Klaus and I live on the street etc.” or one song on repeat.

Twenty years ago I once dared to buy a homeless person some food — he helped himself generously and I footed the bill. It was super awkward for me, and secondly he apparently had clothing on that did not smell so strongly that I would have left the train carriage. When I had cash on me, it was quickly given to two beggars and that was that. For at least 3 years now I have noticed that this seems to be the case for many people — the beggars and musicians come along and only get deposit bottles, because hardly anyone carries cash anymore, or it is buried at the bottom of their rucksack in a backup wallet.

So what do you think of this idea? There are already very small portable payment devices (SumUp) available.
What if the beggar or musician had one of these, and you had the assurance that they receive a maximum of 2 EUR no matter how many times you tap your card — with a cap per day, week, or month.
Afterwards they go to a location where the money gets paid out, with 10-20% fees deducted — more on that later — and they gradually pay off the deposit for the device (20-30 EUR) over the first few visits.
Why fees for people who have nothing? It could be directly linked to places where they can shower, do laundry, or get medical advice for very little money — but they do not have to. They can just take the cash and go. There has to be intrinsic motivation first anyway — otherwise no advice works, no matter how well-intentioned.
Sure, an actual doctor could not be funded by this, but maybe a grill station giving out free food could.

Now for the problems I see. We would need an investor who builds these devices very cheaply — or better yet, one who donates them for charitable purposes. Money laundering is probably the biggest problem — legally a complete mess. With cash it is fine, but with something like this, no idea whether the state would even make an exception, even if it is for a good cause.

Could money be made from this? Absolutely — if the legal issues were resolved and it could be rolled out across all of Germany and Europe, there would be some well-paid positions in it.