MSE News: Cash payments set to slump further

liz545

What about people without bank accounts? This will be very hard on people who haven't got bank accounts, who typically have poor financial literacy, and rely on cash to do all their budgeting. This is only going to further marginalise people who really need help!

[Deleted User]

I will always use cash in daily spending. Much safer and quicker than using your plastic card several times a day. Each time you enter your PIN, you risk somebody reading your code over your shoulder. I use my card mainly for online transactions and taking out cash from my local branch to spend on my relatively small shopping bills.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

x_Bunny_x wrote: »

I saw this on the teletext last night. I have never really stood in the shop looking to see what people use to pay for their groceries. I know there is always the one in front of you paying by card and holding the queue up.

I ALWAYS see lots of people queing at the atm machines though for cash. Next time i go shopping im going to secretly see how people pay for their groceries

Well I hope you manage to nurse the bruises OK when people thnk you are trying to gawp at their PINs

HappyMJ

I have now started paying for my local bus tickets using a credit card. I load up my Mango card with money from the credit card and use the Mango when I get the bus. I get a 25% discount on the cash fare for each ticket doing it this way and I have a record of every journey I've made. When the credit card bill comes in I pay it in full. Cost £10 per month and it gets me 2 journeys per week. Saving about £3.50 per month.

https://www.trentbarton-mango.co.uk/

snugglepet20

Bye bye cash I won't miss you!

Cards are so much more convenient and minimalist, they don't leave useless piles of change lying about all over the place and you don't have to worry that you haven't got enough money with you. Plus cash is full of urine and faeces, ecoli, cocaine and anything else you care to mention, yuck!

Stompa

snugglepet20 wrote: »

Bye bye cash I won't miss you

Nor me. I only use cash when there is absolutely no alternative. I'd be surprised if more than 5% of my transactions were in cash.

reihtec

Firstly, I don't think this article was saying that cash is going away, just that people are using it less.

Butterfly_Brain wrote:

God what a horrible thought I am only able to budget properly with cash.

How exactly do you budget? At least with a debit card and online banking, I never have to remember where I spent money and if I keep my receipts and wait a few days, I can tie every single transaction to a receipt before I shred it and know that I have not been overcharged. Plus if there is a fraudulent transaction you can catch it and your bank will cover it. You can't do that with cash and your wallet can also get stolen etc.

x_Bunny_x wrote:

I know there is always the one in front of you paying by card and holding the queue up

lordash wrote:

I work in shop where the queues get really massive, and you always get a few people who insist on paying for everything with a card no matter the amount

x_bunny_x and lordash, the holding up of the queue and long queues are not the fault of the credit/debit card systems but because some people are stupid and slow and some shops are still using archaic 56k modems to do their card authorisations. Using a modem for authorising transactions can take upto 30 seconds to process, yet in this day and age, if you upgrade to an online based system, transactions can take less than 5 seconds to process (I know I worked for a company that did this kind of software and processing). You can also implement floor limits for transactions less than say £5 and these would then be pretty much instantaneous.

If you go into Tesco and time how long it takes from the time you enter your PIN and press enter, to the time it takes to say "remove your card", you'll find it's quicker than it would take you to find the right change, or even for the teller to count out the change to give you. This just an example BTW of how quick it can be.

lordash wrote:

I believe merchants have to pay around 20-40p per transaction, and for amounts under £10 it really isn't worth it unless your margins are high enough to cover it

This excuse really annoys me! My local grocery store says the same thing, they won't accept cards on txns under £10 because "it costs him too much". Ok then I say I'll pay the 20 - 40p. But no, you'd rather lose my business. He has probably lost hundreds of pounds from me alone because I've had to go somewhere else because I didn't have the cash. Or if I am desperate I have to use the cash machine that charges me £1.65 per transaction. And it's not just me, I have seen several people in the same shop who have had to leave their purchases because it was a couple pounds short of £10.

Another example is a time I went to purchase a carpet from a local shop. I found a carpet at a price I liked and the guy said he accepted card, but when he saw it was a "sale" item he said he couldn't accept card because it cost him too much. Alright I said, how much does it cost you then? I think it was a few pounds so I offered to pay the fee as well. He umm'ed an ahh'ed and decided he'd rather lose my business.

The phrase, "penny wise, pound foolish" comes to mind.

This will be very hard on people who haven't got bank accounts, who typically have poor financial literacy, and rely on cash to do all their budgeting

I believe the banks are now being forced to offer everyone a bank account. Anyways, the article doesn't say no one will use cash, just more people are realising the benefits of using card or similar payment methods.

As for those with "poor financial literacy" then using cash to budget is probably the beginning of their problems. How can you expect to track where your money goes if you use an untraceable system such as cash? I mean in most shops they don't give you a receipt if you pay by cash (particularly the small grocery/corner shops), yet if you pay by card they automatically give you a receipt (they are required to and are now used to this). So if you keep all your receipts (I just orderly put them in my wallet) you can go through them at the end of the day/week and put them into a budgetting program (I recommend YNAB) and know exactly where your money went. You can't even use online banking or a bank statement to track what you spent your cash on, yet you can do so with a debit card. Please tell me HOW cash can possibly be better? Part of budgeting and being "financially literate" is knowing where your money goes, you can't do that with cash. Can you honestly say where every last penny of your last £10 went? What happened to the 1p you got back from the 99p chocolate for example? I can tell you where mine is, still in my bank account

travellingbum wrote:

Each time you enter your PIN, you risk somebody reading your code over your shoulder

That's why you should cover up when entering your PIN. Don't feel shy to tell someone they are encroaching on your personal space or ask the teller to do it.

travellingbum wrote:

I use my card mainly for online transactions

So you feel safer with online transaction eh? Well don't get me wrong, if you are careful and check to make sure the site is SSL encrypted, and you have up-to-date Antivirus and anti-spyware that you keep up to date and regularly scan your computer, don't save your passwords and don't visit dodgy sites the yes you are pretty safe. But it's so easy, if not easier to get your card details through the computer than through trying to see your PIN over your shoulder and THEN trying to steal the right card or card details.


Anyways I'll end a long post. But don't be afraid of using cards. Cash will always be around, but it doesn't change the fact that cashless systems are better than cash and are the way of the future. Those that refuse to acknowledge it are like the people that still keep writing cheques!