> People commonly withdraw thousands of dollars and then disappear from online banking or bank-card use

In fairness, using contactless payments is super convenient and although it leaves a data trail, the sheer convenience of being able to buy a beer without fumbling around in my pockets is great. It's the old privacy versus convenience argument. But then, here in the EU you can compartment your card use with things like Revolut, and you can even secure your card by setting a limit on how much you can spend with contactless (no affiliation with Revolut, I just enjoy their app).

Of course in an ideal world, there would be no such (transparent) data trail and you would pay for everything with Monero, over Tor lol

Was I not clear in my post above? People sometimes take out cash before traveling because cash is the only way to pay for things in certain parts of the developing world.

Sorry, I skipped that part where you meant the developing world. I'm referring to how I spend my money in the EU. Revolut has all these 'neobank' features of limiting contactless spend, creating a virtual disposable card for e-commerce purchases, and also being able to send money to others, etc.

Well, I’d be extremely surprised if Revolut kept all that juicy data for themselves. The net privacy benefit of their disposable cards is most likely negative over using a more privacy-respecting single card bank.

I had the same dirty feeling whenever I paid with my Revolut cards as I do when someone I legit want to connect with adds me on Facebook.

That's associated with a big travel purchase so you can cut that possibility out pretty quickly.

But this case can be ruled out by the authorities since there won't be a record of them crossing any borders.