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Off the back of the eBay & HMRC thread.
In my head, I'm a fan of going cashless - greater potential accountability, right taxes should be paid, remove costs associated with manufacture and distribution of cash etc.
A part of from whether or not we can trust the banks, what are the downsides?
Is it not inevitable? I hope so..... I hate cash.
what are the downsides?
It doesn't work well for poorer people.
I've had £50 for a month... i'm not sure when i'll spend it.
A couple of links
https://www.unbiased.co.uk/discover/personal-finance/budgeting/a-cashless-society-what-are-the-pros-and-cons
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/pros-and-cons-of-moving-to-a-cashless-society-4160702
The main objections seem to be about security and resilience of digital systems
I've been effectively cashless since covid. I suspect I spent under £100 in cash last year, this year will probably be less.
There's a load of problems with the margins of our society and a cashless world though, until they're solved cashless simply isn't an option
No. I use cash all of the time.
No. And I don't use cash.
No.
It'd ruin charities who rely heavily on collection tins on shop counters, it's not great for older people, poorer people and also kids (with stuff like pocket money).
And I say that as someone who hardly ever uses cash.
Haven’t used cash since the pandemic 🤷♂️
No.It costs us shops to take your card. With no cash it will cost YOU to pay.
Credit card companies exist to make money.
Absolutely not.
The main downside - around 2% of everyone's wages will go to banks. Prices will increase etc everything you ever buy will be traceable, everywhere you go will be traceable. The data around cards and purchases is already sold and is significantly valuable.
I rarely use cash nowadays. Does my head in when I have to as inevitably I don't have any on me!
Was a pain in the arse when I lost my trolley token and couldn't find a pound coin for the locker at the swimming baths the other week!!
Don't think we should be completely cashless though.
And not all tradesmen want cash, it gets pushed onto them sometimes though and then they struggle to get rid of it, when they're trying to do things properly.
the only people i know who want cash to remain are tradesmen or tradies WAGS :0)
Okay, so you don't know me but I've been paye all my adult life & I much prefer cash, take out £xx each week let's me keep a lid on spending & means finding any transactions in my bank & cc statements so much easier without trawling through stacks of small payments, reduces the chance of my cards being cloned and allows me to pay when systems go down 👍
No.Itcosts us shops to take your card
It costs to use cash?
Snap!
Don’t think we should be completely cashless though.
I can't decide if it's a binary thing - whether we will realise all the benefits if cash still exists 🤔
What will Kebab shops and Nail Bars do ???
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?
No. I'd really miss the songs, particularly his later work with Rick Rubin.
my local Chinese takeaway only accepts cash, and I won't be missing out on that treat
It's a nope from me. Like using cash and it's handy at times. Handy when I'm going out on the lash (not that often these days) - I take a set amount of money out with me and know it's time to go home when I've run out, with a card I think I'd forget and just keep drinking. Other reasons stated above as well
@gowerboy sweden seems to be pretty much cashless anyway, i drew out £200 of krona at the airport when i went for a weekend in 2019, i came home with £160, hardly anywhere took cash.
and yes i agree budgeting using cash is pretty good for some, i find it pretty simple to budget using bank accounts / credit cards, i transfer x amount to my joint bills account, x amount to my savings, and then i have the remainder to spend each month. any not spent at the month end (getting rarer) is put in savings.
Won't someone think of the coke and hookers please....
Nope, I make a point of keeping a tenner in the wallet for mid ride/walk pints. I don't want to be that **** getting a card out for a pint that a pub only makes pennies on even before the CC company takes a cut.
No.It costs us shops to take your card. With no cash it will cost YOU to pay.
Credit card companies exist to make money.
It costs shops to take cash, you just don't see it at the transaction level. Shocker banks also exist to make money.
Something like 85% of transactions are by card, most being by debit rather than credit card.
There are a few very marginalised people who don't have access to banking or really rely on physical cash for budgeting, for most it's a personal preference. However there's always people who are on the margins when society is changing, trying to stop the changes won't help them, they need other mechanisms. For the rest you can try shouting at the sky about what you want or you could accept life changes and move with the times.
Cashless is already here for most people and will continue to increase, I have have access to data from millions of transactions a year and there's a steady move towards card transactions, the vast majority of which are contactless. Expect chip and pin to be phased out next in a lot of self service situations.
How do you buy eggs, fruit, etc from honesty boxes when bikepacking without cash?
PayPal or bank transfer.
It costs shops to accept cash, certainly to bank it depending on your account (you could mitigate the cost with a door on the chocolate fridge 😉)
Charities will get wise, roundup payments would make more sense and probably result in more money coming in.
Pocket money? How is that difficult? £x per week/month to a kids prepay card.
Weekly allowance? You can easily have a second account or just a pot you can refer to. Balance is as easy as checking your phone.
I wouldn't miss it, I only use it for paying skate coaches (yeah yeah...) and the occasional kebab which is a PITA. I really don't know how the coaches can be bothered as they need to break a 10 or 20 every sodding time. Not my fault we don't use it for anything else.
It costs you to take cash. Maybe those costs are not as discrete or visible, but they are there.
It costs shops to take cash, you just don’t see it at the transaction level.
Personally for my small shop, I make money taking cash from withdrawals and deposits and loose money when customers pay by card - the smaller the transaction on the till the bigger the loss and the more my prices will have to increase (anyone remember card payment minimum spends in shops?).
The counter argument to cash is always - "but some has to spend time banking it! And you have bank fees associated to cash!" Complete BS.
Firstly most small business owners don't 'charge' for all the hours spent doing work, so banking cash occasionally really isnt an issue. Ok yes they may send a member of staff to bank it for them but that's their choice not yours. However cards add a cost which is comparatively non negotiable for business and that's 100% the customers choice not the business.
As for bank fees - banks have a small business accounts most don't charge for cash deposits. Again this is the businesses decision not the customers as to which account and bank and fee they use.
Cards are a convenience but we all pay for that when using them. The increase in card transactions since 2020 has had an impact on prices and the cost of living - especially in the food sector which my shop is part of.
I have have access to data from millions of transactions a year and there’s a steady move towards card transactions
Has there been a move back to cash recently?
Increases in the costs of living has pushed move people to the edge, and for many its easier to control their spending if its with cash.
No. Be careful what you wish for. And I knew someone would mention covid. FFS.
Going cashless would ensure you can be tracked and controlled by banks and governments. That isn't conspiracy its fact. Another lockdown in a cashless UK? Can you imagine the restrictions then? The last lot of restrictions were way OTT and unjustified at the expense of peoples health jobs and livelihoods etc etc.
What happens when a rogue government gets into power like we have now? Do you trust that lot or any politician? If your answer to that is yes then you need sectioning.
If any local business goes cashless they should be run out of town. There is no good reason for it and there never will be.
Going cashless would ensure you can be tracked and controlled by banks and governments.
Bitcoin?
occasional kebab which is a PITA
More of a naan man myself.
I wouldn’t miss it personally, but would lament losing it for the reasons above (edit, conspiracy theories excluded, obvs) I withdraw a tenner a quarter, to get my hair cut.
"It costs to use cash"
No it doesn't.
Ha, wondered how long a thread like this would last before the resident conspiracist would rock up, took less time than I thought.
Pretending to be right-wing for a moment: Absolutely. Cash is a pain in the arse, a throwback to simpler times. Contactless card / phone / wearable / dermal implant for everything please. As someone else said above, I rarely have folding cash on me unless I've remembered to stick an emergency tenner on me, and don't carry change at all unless I've had to break said tenner.
However, cashless is a perfect system... for me. There many use cases were cash is king. It must be terrible for people on the streets for instance, they've been hearing "sorry mate, I don't have any change" forever but these days there's a high chance that it's likely true. People who like to write cheques and still refer to decimal coinage non-ironically as "new money" will likely struggle. Chuggers and passive collection tins as someone else mentioned, it used to be easy to haul a handful of shrapnel out of your pocket, surreptitiously pull out the gold (and you're really cheap, silver) coloured ones and then chuck the rest into a bucket. Small-value transactions, buying a Mars bar on card in a local independent corner shop probably costs the store a net loss (the chippie near me has a minimum spend of £5 for card/contactless transactions). Again as above, some people like it for management reasons (though there are other solutions here, create a separate account maybe, or doesn't one of the online banks let you create 'pots' or 'buckets' or something). Slipping a quid into your nephew's hand when his mum isn't looking. Etc, etc, and indeed etc.
"Can we trust..." is a bit of a non-issue to my my mind. Of course we can't trust banks, banks are for-profit self-serving bastards. But this is the first-world society we live in, we already have to trust banks, what other choice do we have? Hiding your cash under the mattress? There's a reason junkies target the elderly and it's not just because they're a soft target.
I think I'd like to see cashless become the default. It broadly is. But cash has its place. Just... can we please discontinue 1p and 2p coins?
No. Be careful what you wish for. And I knew someone would mention covid. FFS.Going cashless would ensure you can be tracked and controlled by banks and governments. That isn’t conspiracy its fact. Another lockdown in a cashless UK? Can you imagine the restrictions then? The last lot of restrictions were way OTT and unjustified at the expense of peoples health jobs and livelihoods etc etc.
What happens when a rogue government gets into power like we have now? Do you trust that lot or any politician? If your answer to that is yes then you need sectioning.
Pff, sheep. I thought everyone knew that the new plastic notes were introduced so cash can be used to harvest peoples' DNA and fingerprints whenever it gets paid into bank accounts.