As one of the poorer people surviving on disability benefits of <12k/year I always use cash when I can, as do most of my mates on benefits/minimum wage, a cashless society may be beneficial to those lucky folk who never have concerns over how much is in the bank for paying the bills.
I would prefer a cashless system to be honest. I find cash a PITA.
I wonder how it would affect the supply and distribution of Illegal Drug ? Seems to me that all transactions are cash, take that away and how else would they fund / pay for it ?
Yes, it is inevitable and a good thing Imo.
The main objectors I see are from small business owners / tradies - I can only deduce it's from a tax avoidance scheme around not declaring 100% of cash sales. A prime example; the last black cabbie I was in was bragging about using the cash to fly business class to Vegas several times a year.
However, from my POV that just mean I have to pay more tax to make up the shortfall.
So aye, clamp down hard on avenues to avoid tax due
Absolutely not. Keep cash and keep card / phone / watch payments - they can coexist!
As a tradesman who often gets asked ‘how much for cash’ the answer is usually 50 quid more as I’ve got to waste an hour of my life going into town to pay it into the bank<br />
Ha. Same as me! My bank charges me to put cash in, I’d rather just get a bank transfer. People look at you strangely when you say you don’t want cash, as they think like the poster further up, that all trades are tax dodgers. What do they think I’m going do with 3 or 4 grand of £20 notes?
Seems to me that all transactions are cash, take that away and how else would they fund / pay for it ?
They'd find a way, how do you think they hide the cash? It all has to go digital eventually.
Can you trust banks? Of course, we already do all the time.
The problem with cashless society is access for people who can't get bank accounts, for example the homeless.
I can only deduce it’s from a tax avoidance scheme around not declaring 100% of cash sales.
Nope - I'd just rather not pay the thousands of pounds I have to for the machine and transactions every year. My cash sales get banked daily and I pay less than £500 a year for the bank account (even if I took 100% of sales in cash it found be a fixed fee). I'd still have to pay for the bank account even if I took zero cash.
the chippie near me has a minimum spend of £5 for card/contactless transactions<br /><br />
My local chippy has circumvented that requirement by increasing prices. <br /><br />
I’d be happy with a cashless society and there are plenty of places round me that are card only. I sold an old sofa recently so I’ve currently got a few quid cluttering up my wallet so I need to make a special trip into a town with an abysmal congestion problem to deposit it. <br /><br />
I do understand that cashless won’t suit everyone though. Tax dodgers can do one, but the elderly and less fortunate need all the help they can get.
I use cash at antique fairs as many of the sellers don't have card readers and those that do are in the middle of nowhere so not sure what they do if the reader fails/doesn't have signal etc,.
So minor problems like that, added to more major problems for poorer, elderly, charities etc,. says to me it needs to stay even if a lot less people are using it.
I’d just rather not pay the thousands of pounds I have to for the machine and transactions every year.
Christ how much do the machines cost? Can you not get a better deal? I paid 40p with my phone at some public toilets in Scarborough the other day, every public toilets there has at least 2 machines. Car park pay machines mostly have card machines on them now, they can't be costing councils thousands a year per machine.
I sold an old sofa recently so I’ve currently got a few quid cluttering up my wallet so I need to make a special trip into a town with an abysmal congestion problem to deposit it.
Just spend it then, no special trips required.
the chippie near me has a minimum spend of £5 for card/contactless transactions
I bet that they are using a sumup or izettle for card transactions?They generally have higher fees but put less restrictions on the retailer. All of the main card reader companies and banks will black list a retailer who put minimum spends on transactions.
What do they think I’m going do with 3 or 4 grand of £20 notes?
Pay your Tesco shop for a few months? Book a holiday though a travel agent? Pay for your petrol at petrol stations? Pay for dinner / lunches? and a million and one other forms routine spending.
Not exactly rocket science.
My cash sales get banked daily
What is the cost for doing that in terms of your time / opportunity to do something more profitable?
I'm not trying to be provocative, just keen to understand. My assumption is that there are costs and risks around handling cash that aren't properly considered, but I might be talking shite.
As one of the poorer people surviving on disability benefits of <12k/year I always use cash when I can, as do most of my mates on benefits/minimum wage, a cashless society may be beneficial to those lucky folk who never have concerns over how much is in the bank for paying the bills.
I just checked my bank balance. 13 seconds from start to finish.
You are right that I am one of the lucky folk, but if I needed to know how much money I had between now and friday to see if I should go to the petrol station on the way home or not I would have found that out.
A part of from whether or not we can trust the banks, what are the downsides?
My father's partner (in Germany) had her bank account locked because someone who had cloned the plates of her car hadn't paid the fine. I always have a moderate amount of cash available so I'm not stuck if my account is locked for a few days
I also just don't trust governments. I would always like the ability to do small transactions without the government knowing or choosing if they like it.
Absolutely not. Keep cash and keep card / phone / watch payments – they can coexist!
Words from my mouth. Absolutely should not go cashless. I use google pay/cards/banking apps every day, yet there is still room for cash. There are plenty of cash businesses round where I live too and its easy to use.
The main objectors I see are from small business owners / tradies – I can only deduce it’s from a tax avoidance scheme around not declaring 100% of cash sales.
As a small business my main reason for taking cash is for the small amounts only. Anything sub £5 just isn't worth taking due to the time taken in admin at the end of the month.
99% of my takings get paid by card or bank transfer.
I also just don’t trust governments. I would always like the ability to do small transactions without the government knowing or choosing if they like it.
Could bitcoin / other crytpto provide a digital alternative that isn't tracked by banks / governments?
Christ how much do the machines cost? Can you not get a better deal?
Machine rental is around £15 a month, card fees depend on what card you use but I'm currently on 0.5p per transaction and and average of 1.7% of total transaction.
As our card transactions have increased we renegotiated a far better deal, it used to be 5p per transaction £20pcm for the machine and 2.2%. so I'm on a far better deal than I was.
These are often fixed term contracts too so your locked in even if you increase trade.
Just… can we please discontinue 1p and 2p coins?
Belgium has done this now. Things are still priced at 4.99 etc but they have some rules about rounding up or down to the nearest 5c which seem to work
a cashless society may be beneficial to those lucky folk who never have concerns over how much is in the bank for paying the bills
I don't want a cashless society. But I find it much easier to keep track of my spending, and how close to that overdraft limit I'm getting, paying by phone.
Pay your Tesco shop for a few months? Book a holiday though a travel agent? Pay for your petrol at petrol stations? Pay for dinner / lunches? and a million and one other forms routine spending.
4 of those things are going to very quickly get you a pile of scrapnel in change which is even more annoying. Likely to be either tossed in the penny jar, lost, put in the charity tin (benefit to the charity yes, but not you) or needlessly spent just for the sake of it.
And someone on page 1 was worried that 2% of your transaction would go to a banking fee. A bargain in comparison.
Also, do travel agents that you visit in person still exist?
I'm also almost completely cash-free these days but nervous about relying entirely on a system that's one system crash/virus/power cut away from coming to a grinding halt.
There's also the privacy/freedom aspect, if I lived in Hong Kong and wanted to send money to pro-democracy activists then I'd be much happier doing it in cash than by an easily traceable money transfer,
Not a primary concern in the UK right now, but if we end up with Prime Minister Braverman in 2028 it may become somewhat pressing matter.
Cash isn't perfect but as a backstop I feel it's close to essential.
Pay your Tesco shop for a few months?
Online dlivery
Book a holiday though a travel agent?
More choice / more convenient to book online also credit card protection
Pay for your petrol at petrol stations?
EV charged at home - not sure ionity chargers take cash even out on the road
Pay for dinner / lunches? and a million and one other forms routine spending.
It's just a bit, you know, hard work isn't it?
Likely to be either tossed in the penny jar, lost, put in the charity tin (benefit to the charity yes, but not you) or needlessly spent just for the sake of it.
You need to look after your money better....
Pay your Tesco shop for a few months? Book a holiday though a travel agent? Pay for your petrol at petrol stations? Pay for dinner / lunches? and a million and one other forms routine spending.
Not exactly rocket science.
No it's not, & it's not for the tax man either, when he comes asking how you've paid for those things, and he will ask, as they aren't stupid
Also, do travel agents that you visit in person still exist?
A new one has just opening up in our town!
No.It costs us shops to take your card. With no cash it will cost YOU to pay.
We run a small shop.
The bank charges me 0.6% to bank cash.
My charges for cards averaged 0.7% over the last 12 months.
I don't have to count the card payments or go to the bank.
We pay in at the post office...no fees.
Machine rental is around £15 a month, card fees depend on what card you use but I’m currently on 0.5p per transaction and and average of 1.7% of total transaction.
As our card transactions have increased we renegotiated a far better deal, it used to be 5p per transaction £20pcm for the machine and 2.2%. so I’m on a far better deal than I was.
These are often fixed term contracts too so your locked in even if you increase trade.
this is a good example of how small a lot of the fees are. assuming most businesses have to have a card machine for some of their customers, if you spend a fiver it costs a grand total of 8p to run it via card. assuming a minumum cost-per-employee of around £14/hour (minimum wage is under £12 but there's a bunch of costs like national insurance, holiday, sick leave, pension etc, to whack on top of that), your 8p has paid for 21 seconds of an employees time. I wouldn't mind betting the average cashless transaction for a pint in a pub saves at least 30 seconds of asking for an amount of money, waiting for the customer to give you some larger amount, walking to the till, typing in how much they paid, finding the correct change and walking back to the customer to inform them of the amount of change, let alone the time spent banking it at the end of the day
as a lot of shops are noticing, disruptive innovations are driving the cost-per transaction towards zero over time.
I hope so….. I hate cash
But you don't need a cashless society not to use cash. I can't really think of a situation where you have to use cash.
Personally it wouldn't bother me either way. I rarely use cash. I have £20 in my wallet which has been there for about 6 months.
Belgium has done this now. Things are still priced at 4.99 etc but they have some rules about rounding up or down to the nearest 5c which seem to work
I did the math. In 1984 when we discontinued the half penny, the penny would be worth 3.1p today. So we could bin the penny coin tomorrow and it's be less of an impact than in losing our smallest denomination coin in 1984.
In 1984 you could still get penny chews. You could walk into a sweet shop with a penny you'd found on the floor, go "one MoJo please" and leave chomping. What's the smallest unit item you can buy today?
We pay in at the post office…no fees.
But it still costs you time for the handling. May be you could spend that time doing something that generated income?
No for me.
If you take away the alternative, you take away the incentive for other options to innovate. Outside of that even in Central London infrastructure is creaky. Junction boxes and mobile base stations are vandalised, poorly maintained or get flooded due to rain or leaky pipes at the best of times. I find it ridiculous that some retailers close doors rather than take cash when this happens. That's not even taking into account tourists from cultures that are still cash heavy.
Every time you spend £10 on a card with a shop/business the bank skims an amount from it.
If you spend £10 in cash in the same shop its still worth £10 not £9.90
If that £10 note is given in change its still worth £10 to use again and again without losing anymore of its actual value.
Going cashless dilutes our money and the banks are the biggest business to gain from it in charges and fees.
Makes me smile when people say i dont know how to spend it, ... try fuel in the car, a pint in the pub, haircut (our barber only takes cash) a magazine, toiletries in Boots, bits for your bike from an actual shop not CRC (oh hold on) etc etc...
Going cashless would be stupid.
the chippie near me has a minimum spend of £5 for card/contactless transactions
My local chippy has circumvented that requirement by increasing prices.
And why not. I'd honestly prefer that, it's convenient for all concerned and it's honest. But as it stands, if I want a bag of chips then I also have to buy several cans of overpriced Coke or go to the ATM round the corner which charges me £1.69 to withdraw a tenner. So what I usually do is walk to the good chippie down the road instead.
I bet that they are using a sumup or izettle for card transactions?They generally have higher fees but put less restrictions on the retailer. All of the main card reader companies and banks will black list a retailer who put minimum spends on transactions.
No idea. I'll try to see what identifying marks I can spot.
I wouldn’t mind betting the average cashless transaction for a pint in a pub saves at least 30 seconds of asking for an amount of money, waiting for the customer to give you some larger amount, walking to the till, typing in how much they paid, finding the correct change and walking back to the customer to inform them of the amount of change,
In my local, they'll already be serving someone else while you're paying by card or phone. Obvioulsy that can't really happen in a shop though, but I don;t think I'd be bothered about a coupleof pence increase in prices to cover the cost of the machines. Christ everyone seems to be taking the opotunity to put prices up when they can any way, we'd never even know about it!!...
This is a very good listen with some shocking stats on the use of cash and who is actually using it.
https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/hot-money
Turns out the amount of cash in circulation has been rising over the last few years and yet use by the public of cash has been reducing. Cash in huge quantities is being used to move criminal wealth around the world.
From the podcast.. Crimminal walks into a 'shop' that is actually a front for a money laundering operation with literally a massive bag of cash. He hands it over. 'Shop' takes a cut and then simply stores the rest 'in the back'. That money never moves. Crim then jumps on a plane to Quatar or some other location and when there walks into the nearest 'shop' and thanks to a call from the shop where he deposited his cash picks up another bag of cash from the local shop less a cut for the local 'banker'. Crim walks away with his cash in a bag - both 'shops' have skimmed a cut. No money has physically left either country and has been laundered nicely to boot.
The system works because there is a continuous flow of crims from one country to the other and cash is added and withdrawn at both ends. Totally untraceable and a network apparently set up by Iran to get around the financial sanctions placed on them. Iran has now allowed organised crime to use their networks.
I guess a cashless society would go some way to putting the brakes on that scheme.
I also just don’t trust governments. I would always like the ability to do small transactions without the government knowing or choosing if they like it.
What's the argument here exactly?
"Any further orders of business?"
"Why yes Mister Speaker, we have it on good authority that one reprobate going by the pseudonym of 'leffeboy' purchased one can of Tizer from the Tesco Express in Maidenhead yesterday."
My distrust of our current government knows few bounds. But I find it hard to get bent out of shape at the notion that they'd be concerned about my "small transactions" unless said transactions involved precision micro-scales and baggies.
No. How do you buy eggs, fruit, etc from honesty boxes when bikepacking without cash? Although I did see on one of Van Duzers videos that they have some system for informal cashless transactions n Sweden?
Venmo / Monzo?
Bitcoin?
The option that can, ironically, be tracked by governments (because HMRC would quickly figure out most peoples wallet ID when they paid their tax bill).
As a tradesman who often gets asked ‘how much for cash’ the answer is usually 50 quid more as I’ve got to waste an hour of my life going into town to pay it into the bank.
+1 when trying to sell stuff on marketplace. What are they expecting, that I'd consider giving it to them on tick and discount for actually paying upfront? Assume it's a cash only business with too much cash on hand, so add 20% Hassle Added Tax.
Pay your Tesco shop for a few months? Book a holiday though a travel agent? Pay for your petrol at petrol stations? Pay for dinner / lunches? and a million and one other forms routine spending.
Tesco - requires me to (remember to) take out more than I need from the pot and put it in my wallet.
Travel Agent - seems about as antiquated a concept as cash
Petrol - pay at pump
Lunch - the canteen has been cashless for ~20 years
The last lot of cash I had from clearing out the garage, ironically paid for some work on the house, which is probably a good reason to go cashless 😂
Every time you spend £10 on a card with a shop/business the bank skims an amount from it.
If you spend £10 in cash in the same shop its still worth £10 not £9.90
If that £10 note is given in change its still worth £10 to use again and again without losing anymore of its actual value.
Going cashless dilutes our money and the banks are the biggest business to gain from it in charges and fees.
A few of my tradie / small business owners often post this sort of meme on their Facebook pages. Every time they overlook the small detail of paying the tax due on the £10 worth of takings. 🙄
As I said before tax dodging only makes the rest of us have to pay more tax to make up the shortfall.
