Cashless Economy

RETAILERS must be fairly compensated for providing cash services to their customers - otherwise there could be a lack of places where shoppers can use banknotes and coins, industry and consumer bodies have said. Shops should not be experiencing higher costs for providing vital services to communities such as ATMs and cashback, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and other bodies argued. The BRC said retailers such as the Post Office have increasingly been called upon to stand in for banks, as ATMs and bank branches have disappeared. But it said shops are finding it increasingly...

Wednesday is the deadline for submissions to be made to the Treasury on how access to cash on our high streets can be maintained. Yes, I know, we are all rightly distracted by other key issues of the moment – lockdown, vaccines and fretting over Christmas. But I trust the country's army of consumer groups does not miss this golden opportunity to impress upon the Government the importance of ensuring that people can always get access to cash on their local high street – as well as continuing to be allowed to use it as a payment option at most retailers. Although the pandemic has played...

We’re hearing a lot this year about how the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the shift to digital payment trends. And, truth be told, the evidence is clear on this; for example, FIS’ recent global survey, Generation Pay, found that one in three people are now using digital wallets or cashless payments and 61 percent of respondents find contactless payments are making their lives easier. These trends have led to a number of think-pieces about the looming inevitability of a cashless society. However, there are still significant obstacles on the course to a cash-free payments landscape in the...

The cashless debit card has had “no substantive impact” on crime, gambling and drug and alcohol abuse in one of the trial sites the government wants to make permanent, according to a new study. Aimed at reducing social harms in areas with high welfare rates, the scheme quarantines 80% of a person’s payments onto a card that cannot be used to withdraw cash and blocks alcohol and gambling transactions. The card has been predominantly trialled in areas with high Indigenous populations. In what is the latest independent study to cast doubt on the scheme, four researchers from the University...

How much cash do you keep in your wallet? We are quickly becoming a cashless society with credit cards and digital transactions becoming the primary forms of money transfer. Even Starbucks continues to play with the idea of a completely cashless store that only accepts credit cards and mobile apps. More and more people don’t carry cash anymore. When going out, we take our phone, ID, and credit card. With those, you can pretty much pay for anything. Even then, credit cards are becoming obsolete as phones nowadays can handle most payments. As people continue their unknowing war on cash,...

Cash is king when technology fails There has been lots of talk lately about moving to a cashless society. Heaven forbid! Look at the way cash has been used through history plus the utilisation of the Royal Mint! Will that diminish? What about the hordes of coins found by metal detectorists! Will they say, “We’ve found a box of old payment cards, they aren’t worth anything but they used these in the old days.” Cash is dirty it is said! No dirtier than newspapers! How do you give a tip to the waiter after your meal etc? Does every ‘Homeless Person’ on the street have to invest in a...

A little over a year ago, Linmay Studio in Evanston joined the growing number of businesses owners around the country no longer accepting cash. The number of cashless businesses in the U.S. has increased over the last few years, spiking at the beginning of the pandemic in an effort to minimize interpersonal contact and mitigate the risk of infection. Square, the mobile payment service that Linmay Studio uses, reported that on March 1, 8 percent of businesses using its products were effectively cashless, meaning that they accepted 95 percent or more of their transactions through credit or...

Many people have stopped using cold, hard — and dirty — cash in favour of debit, credit, or contactless forms of payment. Transferred from one person to the next, money is susceptible to picking up a whole host of germs. And naturally, when the coronavirus hit, this left people questioning if cash was safe, while many businesses started encouraging cashless forms of payment. But do we really need to be concerned about getting coronavirus from cash? Probably not. ‘THE LIKELIHOOD OF GETTING COVID-19 FROM TOUCHING MONEY IS EXTREMELY LOW.’ With months of research behind us, our knowledge of...

The nation pushing the hardest for digital money is also one of the world's most oppressive – China. China has begun trials of a new digital Yuan, with the aim of becoming the first country in the world to offer a digital sovereign currency. Read (and Watch) more