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Coronavirus: Is this the end of physical cash? Will we go completely electronic?

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ComUtoR

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I agree that declining cash makes little commercial sense though!

It is becoming more and more popular for business to only take card. This cuts down on the time, effort and cost of cash handling. It also increases security. Moving to an all electric ledger will also have its benefits.

The switch to electronic payments is also due to the growth of online shopping. As Retail continues to die a slow and horrible death, cash transactions will also reduce.
 
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Bletchleyite

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Is a couple of people handling a bank note or a coin really a more serious risk of contamination than hundreds of people paying by plastic touching the same keypad? This no cash thing just looks silly and counterproductive. The sort of nonsense you always get when anything at all goes awry.

They are mostly insisting on contactless which genuinely is lower risk.
 

Bletchleyite

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& how would you pay for eggs/jams/flowers at an unmanned stall by the roadside?

BACS is one option, or maybe someone in the UK will come up with something like the Chinese WeChat payments. Why is it, though, that people come up with incredibly niche stuff on this forum to object to things?
 

ComUtoR

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& how would you pay for eggs/jams/flowers at an unmanned stall by the roadside?

You can get terminals that have a fixed price that you can tap your contactless payment on. I've seen them cropping up for charity donations. FOr an unmanned stall that relies on the honesty system they could provide a solution.

I've seen more and more small business use personal card readers and some with payment directly through a mobile app.
 

philjo

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The local farm where we get our Christmas Turkey from does not have facilities for card payments. Other than Christmas, they only have a few sales each week so can not justify the bank charges for the equipment. It is cash though most customers including us tend to pay by cheque.
 

najaB

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Is a couple of people handling a bank note or a coin...
Try a dozen or more in the day or two that the virus would still be infectious.
... hundreds of people paying by plastic touching the same keypad?
In my local Tesco they're wiping down the card terminals on a regular basis, even though most people are paying using contactless.

At the end of the day, I know where my card has been, and even if a shop doesn't offer contactless I can reduce my risk of exposure from touching the keypad (e.g. use a tissue or gloves) but I have no idea at all where the change I receive in a shop has been.
 

JohnB57

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It is becoming more and more popular for business to only take card. This cuts down on the time, effort and cost of cash handling. It also increases security. Moving to an all electric ledger will also have its benefits.

The switch to electronic payments is also due to the growth of online shopping. As Retail continues to die a slow and horrible death, cash transactions will also reduce.
I completely agree. My point was about the misunderstanding that people often have about "Legal Tender". I have cash in my wallet that's been untouched for around two months as I mainly use a debit card, contactless where possible, and I use it quite a lot so I'm aware of the real-life benefits.

I'd still suggest that retailers need to be as flexible as possible with payment methods though.
 

Struner

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BACS is one option, or maybe someone in the UK will come up with something like the Chinese WeChat payments. Why is it, though, that people come up with incredibly niche stuff on this forum to object to things?
It may be a niche thing for city dwellers, but not all of us are :p. I usually buy my farm fresh free range eggs this way. I must admit that I have to save up coins for that. Any other time I pay cash is just for getting change for that purpose. :lol:
 

Wombat

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I don't think we'll see cash disappearing until the people who make these decisions have an alternative, non-traceable method of paying for sex and drugs.
 

Busaholic

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Had a Nat West bank statement this week for my current account, and on it was the message that attempted payments by contactless card were going to be allowed less in future, with the need to once again use chip and pin. If either cash or contactless were going to disappear in the next decade or two, my money (cash, of course) would be on contactless. :lol:
 

bussnapperwm

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To be honest, I refuse to use contactless (I only have Google Pay in order to keep my loyalty cards together) as it's less secure than chip and pin and easier to spendthrift than cash.
 

507021

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BACS is one option, or maybe someone in the UK will come up with something like the Chinese WeChat payments. Why is it, though, that people come up with incredibly niche stuff on this forum to object to things?

Buying things at the roadside is hardly "niche".

I've certainly never come across a burger van or ice cream van which accepted card payments.
 

LAX54

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If it goes 'card only' what happens when there is a Power Cut, or the link to the server goes down, the phone line fails ? Was in the CoOp once and there was a Computer / I.T crash, they were flummoxed, they had no old style manual card swipe machines, so it was cash only, then that gave the issue or working out the change !
 

Struner

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If it goes 'card only' what happens when there is a Power Cut, or the link to the server goes down, the phone line fails ? Was in the CoOp once and there was a Computer / I.T crash, they were flummoxed, they had no old style manual card swipe machines, so it was cash only, then that gave the issue or working out the change !
Oh dear :lol:
 

507021

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Buying things from unattended stands at the roadside is.

Perhaps so, but I personally think we can't stop using physical money simply because of this virus. As a society, we are not ready to go cashless, and implementing it would cost a lot of money.

There are many people who for whom cash remains a necessity and leaving them behind is not an option.

In due course I'm certain they will. Some probably already do.

Well I've certainly never come across one yet.
 

Busaholic

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If you dispute a contactless transaction it will be refunded. How much more secure do you want?
The ex- head of National Fraud, based in the City of London Police HQ not only refuses to use it but has 'amended' his cards so they can't be used in contactless mode: the chief cashier of the Bank of England has also said she doesn't trust contactless, and won't use it, which gives me the answer to the question you naively pose.
 

Shaw S Hunter

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With businesses (including TOCs) all over the place saying that they won't take cash due to contamination risk...will they start again, or is cash now dead?

You seem to bang this drum every couple of months or so and each time it becomes clear that support for such a move is nowhere near strong enough to make it practical. And in a democracy freedom of choice is surely more important than the convenience of a particular sub-set of the population. I'm out...
 

Enthusiast

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If it goes 'card only' what happens when there is a Power Cut, or the link to the server goes down, the phone line fails ? Was in the CoOp once and there was a Computer / I.T crash, they were flummoxed, they had no old style manual card swipe machines, so it was cash only, then that gave the issue or working out the change !

Makes no difference. If the leccy goes they have no way of determining how much you must pay. All goods are bar-coded and that is the only way they are priced. No leccy, no bar code readers. Even if they had a sticker on them saying "50p" it would still not help as the cashier has no way of tapping 50p into the till. The checkout only recognises goods, not prices and its needs leccy to turn the goods into prices.

Quite few small businesses prefer cards because it makes accounting at the end of the day easier and it prevents staff fiddling the till. I know of one local bar and one small shop that takes no cash and they seem to be doing OK (well, the bar was up to yesterday)..
 

yorkie

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The ex- head of National Fraud, based in the City of London Police HQ not only refuses to use it but has 'amended' his cards so they can't be used in contactless mode: the chief cashier of the Bank of England has also said she doesn't trust contactless, and won't use it, which gives me the answer to the question you naively pose.
It would be useful if you could provide the sources you are referring to, so people can look for themselves...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2...-the-woman-whose-name-is-on-british-banknotes
It is perhaps not entirely surprising to learn that the woman whose signature adorns Bank of England banknotes is a big fan of cash...

...I do hear stories of friends – this is a personal anecdote, this isn’t the official Bank view – whose money has been taken off contactless when you walk past something...
I've never heard anyone say this has happened to them however I do know people (myself included) who have had cash lost or stolen.

So if this is your argument, it's a pretty weak case.
 
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