Cashless payments are on the rise in the wake of COVID-19, but don’t write off hard currency just yet. A new survey from online deal platform CouponFollow, “The State of Cashless Spending in 2021,” indicates nearly half (49%) of surveyed adult U.S. consumers are worried about using cash due to the potential risk of COVID-19 transmission. As a result, 41% started using cashless payments during 2020. However, respondents are not entirely abandoning cash as a means of making retail purchases. Six in 10 (62%) used cash for some of their shopping in 2020, and nine in 10 (91%) carry cash on...
PEOPLE in some of the most deprived areas are paying up to £2 for each cash withdrawal while numbers of free ATMs plummet, consumer watchdog finds.Which? consumer group said freeto-use machines were vanishing at an alarming rate. Campaigners are warning that we risk sleepwalking into a cashless society. Which? has called for a "clear blueprint" on the future of cash, and wants the Government to ensure access to paper money. Gareth Shaw, head of money, said: "Everyone should have reasonable access to their own money without having to pay.Yet our research shows free cash machines are...
Among the many wonders Marco Polo encountered on his journey to China in the 13th century was paper money. The Chinese invention so impressed the Venetian traveler that he observed the Mongol emperor at the time had “a more extensive command of treasure than any other sovereign in the universe.” Today, China is again at the forefront of monetary innovation. It plans to eliminate notes, which have been circulating for 1,500 years, and launch a digital-only currency. Coins will disappear, too. In preparation for becoming the world’s first major economy to go fully cashless, several Chinese...
Merchant Machine has taken an in-depth look at payment methods of different countries around the world to find the nations where physical cash still takes precedence despite the increasing popularity of digital payment wallets such as Apple Pay and Paypal. The study also looks into the UK’s changing habits with cash and predicts when the United Kingdom can expect to be a completely cashless society. The top 10 countries most reliant on cash With over 70% of payments made in cash, Romania has been revealed as the country most reliant on physical cash. Nearly half (42%) of the Eastern...
Some 34% of consumers in the UK have been blocked from paying for goods with cash during the coronavirus pandemic. That is according to consumer group Which?, which surveyed more than 2,000 people across the country in November. The research showed that people were most likely to have been refused the option of paying with cash when shopping for groceries, accounting for more than a quarter (28%) of incidents. Leisure activities such as going to a pub or restaurant followed closely behind, with 24% of people being refused for paying with cash, and those who bought cleaning products...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank has come out swinging on the side of cash – and the often vulnerable people who still use it. The annual Monster Book Fair in the Kapiti Coast town of Paekākāriki is a big deal. It’s run by local volunteers and goes on for three days. There are thousands of books for sale, and big money gets raised by volunteers, many of them retirees, for the St Peter’s Hall restoration fund. But last year, when the fair was over and the treasurer went to a BNZ branch with several thousand dollars worth of coins...
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) is looking to close the widening digital divide and has warned merchants that they must accept cash or face disciplinary action, Reuters reported on Tuesday (Dec. 15). Most businesses in China have gone digital and some have stopped taking cash altogether, in part due to the coronavirus, but also as a means of cost control and user demand. “Renminbi (yuan) cash is the most basic means of payment. Entities or individuals cannot refuse to accept it,” the PBOC, which is China's central bank, said in a statement, per Reuters. The PBOC also said that any...
The coronavirus pandemic has left Italy’s economy in a bad state, with the latest predictions foreseeing a -9% in GDP in 2020. At the same time, the online economy has limited the fall, leading to a +15% in the use of contactless payments and +80% of mobile payments compared to 2019. For the first time, Italy’s historic resistance to electronic transactions might be at a turning point. This is one of the reasons behind the country’s government decision to draft a plan in the direction of a ‘cashless society’, which is also meant to counter undeclared economic activity and tax evasion - a...
Anyone can use cash to transact – important in a country where one in five people do not have a bank account (Finscope, 2018). Cash doesn’t discriminate according to whether you own a smartphone, can get a card from a nearby banking branch or have an ID book for a FICA or Know Your Customer process. It allows immediate participation in the economy for all. According to the PYMNTS Global Cash Index™ South Africa Analysis, more than 50 percent of consumer transactions are completed with notes and coins. With around R135 billion in cash circulating in the economy and millions of unbanked...
They said digital payments would defeat criminals, terrorists and money launderers but the opposite has turned out to be true. Money laundering through banks, hackers blackmailing legitimate listed companies for cryptocurrency payoffs and regular outages by my bank’s Eftpos system show cash may be our last bulwark against the crims and the thieves. Card companies and banks implied that cash was unsafe at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic but it turns out that cards maybe dirtier than cash. Scott Morrison’s government proposes to ban cash transactions over $10,000. T Our right to...
