Not the end of cash

Today is Lady Day, which used to be not only the start of the legal year in England, but also when traditionally the agricultural season started and when monies were due to be paid. (There is more about the significance of this Quarter Day here.) So it is an appropriate date to talk about the future of cash.

Which? (the Consumers' Association) has just celebrated persuading the Chancellor of the Exchequer to protect cash. Anabel Hoult, Which? Chief Executive, writes on the magazine's web-site:

the government will bring forward legislation to protect access to cash and ensure that the UK’s cash infrastructure in sustainable in the long-term. We know that the cash system faces irreversible damage within the next two years. The UK’s ATM network is on the verge of collapse. In the past two years, 9,000 free cash machines and 1,200 bank branches have vanished. We’re even being charged a fee to access our own money at 25% of the cash machines that remain. Understandably, millions of people are unhappy about this. They rely on cash. For many of them, cash is the only option, so the government must swiftly press ahead with these plans to legislate, which must include putting a single regulator in charge of protecting cash.

We look forward to working with the government, regulators and industry to ensure that cash is protected for as long as it is needed.

As one who uses local town shops as much as supermarkets in Swansea or Neath, I can vouch for the fact that at least half the transactions here are in cash. Not all of us have cars which we can load up at an out-of-town supermarket once a week. Cash is still so useful for small purchases that I habitually draw a tenner out of the only ATM remaining in the town which does not charge a fee for withdrawals. Online purchases are disproportionately expensive for small purchases because of packing and carriage charges. Physical cash still works when card readers or the network break down. It can act as a curb on spending, which invisible card transactions do not.

Some EU nations have gone further down the cashless line, e.g. Sweden and Estonia. But there are doubts here, too:

e-commerce and the cashless society are facing a host of challenges related to cybercrime, fraud, privacy, the digital divide and pollution, among others. The coronavirus outbreak is also posing various challenges to e-commerce supply chains, many of which are based in the hardest-hit countries.

If cash were abolished, we would almost certainly want to bring it back, as we have brought back railway lines which were closed in the 1960s, also in the cause of progress.