Cash

Its all well and good everyone saying they can live without cash payments but the world doesn't work like that. Not everyone can get cards there are people who have trouble with cards and payments so is everyone happy for those people to be wiped out because they think it's better? If you are reduced to one payment method in today society that lets face it can change over night and it only takes something like mass fraud or complete outage of technology then what is everyone to do?

Saw this tweet thread today, she makes some good points. Especially I think about children learning the value of money, much harder to do if it's invisible.

Going cashless I think is inevitable at some point, but it isn’t coming anytime soon because we just couldn’t support it yet. To go cashless you have to have confidence that that the internet would never, ever go down - over the last year that’s happened quite a bit in the UK.

You’d need a brand new banking system in place really - I don’t know that current model supports (or works well) for a cashless society. It works for transactions in shops, but not very well on a personal level, where you have to mess around with account numbers and sort codes. I know there’s systems out there at the moment that overcome this, but you’d need something centralised and universal.

Once the decision has been made I imagine we’d get rid of paper cash but keep coin circulation in play for transactions under £5. No one wants to send their kids to the local for bread and milk with access to a full bank account!

Plus the sheer number of machines around the country that rely on coins.... there’d need to a phasing out really. I mean, do all buses accept cards now?

So to be honest, if Parliament ever decided it was the way forward (and I’m not sure they should - it should be a referendum for such a fundamental change) I really could see a 10 year transition period.

But I’m all for it. I’ve always hated cash and just think plastic is much safer. It’s very, very rare I have any sort of physical money on me and I rarely even take a bank card with me - most places are contactless now and I’ve never come unstuck in my day to day. The wallet only comes out the drawn nowadays if I’m going somewhere new and unknown.

There are ways around even that, though - in Japan, for example, you can pay for your purchases in a lot of convenience shops, coffee places etc using your Suica/Pasmo/Icoca (the local equivalent of an Oyster card). I got rid of the last of the balance on mine by buying stuff in a 7-11 at the airport before I left.

www.chad.co.uk/lifestyle/mansfield-gran-fears-shell-have-no-way-pay-cash-banned-2910163
www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/18572873.samuel-smiths-pubs-still-wont-accept-bank-cards-despite-pandemic/
Interesting local stories on both sides of the argument.

Most places handling food don't actually touch food and then the money. In cafe and small places a lot of tong use and the end doesn't come in contact with the food. In one way I can understand it but from that completely selfish or view that a pretty large subsection of the UK either can't get a card or contactless card (for a lot of places). Where I work I don't get hours to go out and search for food on a lunch break. When I go back I have no where to go and get food. I ususally have to go to different places because I have digestion issues. My shop actually like most of the shops in stations there is no back of house or storage where you could fridge or that. In my shop we have a cupboard most of its stock. All I can bring from home is bread and vegemite. I can bring a coffee yeah when I am on like a full weekend 9 hour days some tines you need an extra shot. I'm going to have to beg someone staff or even customer to get me a coffee. All because pretty much all these places are contactless I can't get card.

They do not want to upset various vested interests like the Daily Mail who are very pro crash.

The cashless society will arrive without Government action.

Many small retailers are finding it is becoming cost effective to become cashless and especially in London where we routinely use contactless to move around people appreciate the convenience.

The banking costs are not that different when processing cash or cards through the banking system and the hours spent cashing up, reconciling and generating accounts are significantly reduced when electronic and the risk of being robbed even though small is removed.

Again we are moving to where the % who cannot join the cashless society due to access to the banking system will become second class citizens but believe now you have to have a bank account to access the benefits system and the banks have to provide basic current accounts.

May be slower outside the M25 but it is coming.

Many small business'ss in London are still cash only- it's only ones that target younger working people that moving to card only.

Businesses such as the Theatre Cafe only take exact change, and prefer for most people to pay by card.

But plenty of people of will never get a smartphone.