Millions of people would struggle if the UK became completely cashless, report finds

Zanderman

Rob5342 said:

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

libra10 said:

For everyday purchases, cash is king!  If the money isn't in your purse/wallet you can't spend it.

Cash is a great budgeting tool, and what happens when there is a problem with your bank card, or possibly lost it?  

Not everyone has the internet, many older people who have never used computers could lose their independence, having to rely on relatives or friends.

Cards have their uses, but they're not infallible.

If the money is in your account it's always down to you whether you spend it or not. You can get £x out in cash or put £x in your pot or spending account, in either case you can still get more cash out or put more money in your spending account. Cash isn't very good for budgeting as you have no idea where it went, on the other hand I can look in the app and see exactly where everything went. If there is a problem with your bank card and you've lost it then you can cancel it and not be any worse off, if you lose you cash you probably won't get it back.

Computers and the internet have been around so long now that that argument doesn't really hold any water now. An 80 year would have been 52 in 1994, a time when most office work was done on a computer.

In response to points about everyone should be using technology now, the obvious riposte is why? Why should they if they're happy with their current set-up?

From a practical point of view you can only expect things to be catered for if there is sufficient overall demand. If somebody chooses to do something an unpopular way then they can't complain if they are unable to do it in certain situations, It's like choosing to use a 126 film camera, you can't complain and say you'll struggle because boots doesn't sell 126 film any more.

That's not a valid comparison at all. 

Firstly taking pictures is not a necessity of life. Being able to pay for things is.

Secondly 126 cameras became useless as the film cased to be made. Cash has not ceased to be made, and there is still so much demand that an official report says it shouldn't be withdrawn.

And, generally speaking, cash is not 'unpopular'.  That's the whole point - it is still in regular use by a very large number of people. Not by you perhaps but it is by lots of other people.  Which is the point of the report saying it's needed.  

You've missed the point here. A new technology is introduced (debit card/digital camera), people like it and start to move over to it, that starts a dominoe effect where it becomes cheaper/more accepted causing more people to move over to it. Eventually the old technology becomes so unpopular that it's not worth anyone supporting it any more.

It might not be the time to go cashless yet but if people keep adopting cashless methods then eventually cash won't be worth the effort for anyone. Things always move on, we used to barter goods but nobody now would complain that Sainsburys wouldn't swap their live chicken for a bottle of beer.

I'm not missing the point.  Cash is still absolutely essential for many.  Until it isn't absolutely essential it will remain. 

Your 126 camera comparison is not valid. People who had a 126 film camera (which wasn't essential, ever) merely had to change to another camera - using 110 or 35mm film when 126 film was discontinued. The unit they had to use was still a camera. That is the financial equivalent of when we went metric - the old coins were phased out gradually, but they were replaced with, er, coins.   Removing cash and going cashless is whole different ball-game.

(And, for Ergates, who is confusing the discontinuation of 126 films with the advent of digital cameras, the same argument applies, the unit being used, when digital cameras began, was, again, still a camera)

Ergates

Zanderman said:

Ergates said:

Zanderman said:

But, for those of us brought up on cash, it is an excellent budgeting tool.  You have £40 in your wallet. You need it to last X days. You go shopping for groceries, you know you mustn't spend more than £Y because you need about £Z for the pub tomorrow and about £W for the cinema the next day. You spend within budget on groceries, and you remember (shock horror!) what you spent!  It's not rocket science to do this. People seem to have lost the ability to remember. Take phone numbers - I used to hold dozens of them in my head, for colleagues in offices all over the country. No need to now and I've forgotten my own mobile number multiple times.  Because I don't need to remember it. But if I did need to I would.  When just using cash I log it all in my head, like everyone (with any sense) used to before computers. Cash can, if you manage it properly, be a really good budgeting tool. You don't have to worry about whether the app shows an immediate debit or not (a regular worry in this forum). You ARE the app, and you know about the debit as it was done by you handing some money over. 

Except *none* of that is dependent on the use of cash and you could do the *exact* same thing using a card or an app.  The only difference is you don't have the remaining money floating round as little bits of metal and paper in your pocket.

There is absolutely no property of cash that helps with budgeting.  People who use cash can budget, obviously, but it's not the possession of cash that enables them to do so.

You're missing the point. Yes, you can do all without cash. I never said you couldn't.

The point I was making was that you CAN track spending if you use cash.  I was responding to someone who claimed you couldn't.

You're merely counter-arguing that you can budget without cash.  Which is not in dispute.

No, nobody said you couldn't track spending with cash, I said that cash was a terrible budgeting tool (which is is) because it has no inherent properties that assist with budgeting.  Any budgeting you do with cash has to be done by *some other means*, not the cash itself, which can equally be done without the cash - ergo the cash is irrelevant to the budgeting, ergo cash is not a good budgeting tool.  If I spend £5 cash in a coffee shop I can see that I have £5 less, but I don't have any record of where I spent the £5 unless I kept a receipt (i.e. a seperate piece of paper, that isn't cash and would have been available no matter what method of payment used).

You can't say that cash is a useful budgeting tool when it offers nothing to support budgeting.

Rob5342

AstonSmith said:

I still want this: I take my phone, type in an amount, tap it against person B's phone and bang. I've sent them money. No numbers. No e-mail addresses. A digital transfer as easy as cash.

I'm also still concerned about how money laundering regulations can be used to lock people out of accounts for weeks or months.

With Monzo you can pay other Monzo users that are nearby, it uses bluetooth to see who's around you and you don't even have to touch phones. The downside obviously is that it's restricted to Monzo, and as stated there would need to be some standard to do it with other banks. Given how antiquated a lot of banks apps are I can't see that happening any time soon. 

Ergates

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

libra10 said:

For everyday purchases, cash is king!  If the money isn't in your purse/wallet you can't spend it.

Cash is a great budgeting tool, and what happens when there is a problem with your bank card, or possibly lost it?  

Not everyone has the internet, many older people who have never used computers could lose their independence, having to rely on relatives or friends.

Cards have their uses, but they're not infallible.

If the money is in your account it's always down to you whether you spend it or not. You can get £x out in cash or put £x in your pot or spending account, in either case you can still get more cash out or put more money in your spending account. Cash isn't very good for budgeting as you have no idea where it went, on the other hand I can look in the app and see exactly where everything went. If there is a problem with your bank card and you've lost it then you can cancel it and not be any worse off, if you lose you cash you probably won't get it back.

Computers and the internet have been around so long now that that argument doesn't really hold any water now. An 80 year would have been 52 in 1994, a time when most office work was done on a computer.

In response to points about everyone should be using technology now, the obvious riposte is why? Why should they if they're happy with their current set-up?

From a practical point of view you can only expect things to be catered for if there is sufficient overall demand. If somebody chooses to do something an unpopular way then they can't complain if they are unable to do it in certain situations, It's like choosing to use a 126 film camera, you can't complain and say you'll struggle because boots doesn't sell 126 film any more.

That's not a valid comparison at all. 

Firstly taking pictures is not a necessity of life. Being able to pay for things is.

Secondly 126 cameras became useless as the film cased to be made. Cash has not ceased to be made, and there is still so much demand that an official report says it shouldn't be withdrawn.

And, generally speaking, cash is not 'unpopular'.  That's the whole point - it is still in regular use by a very large number of people. Not by you perhaps but it is by lots of other people.  Which is the point of the report saying it's needed.  

You've missed the point here. A new technology is introduced (debit card/digital camera), people like it and start to move over to it, that starts a dominoe effect where it becomes cheaper/more accepted causing more people to move over to it. Eventually the old technology becomes so unpopular that it's not worth anyone supporting it any more.

It might not be the time to go cashless yet but if people keep adopting cashless methods then eventually cash won't be worth the effort for anyone. Things always move on, we used to barter goods but nobody now would complain that Sainsburys wouldn't swap their live chicken for a bottle of beer.

I'm not missing the point.  Cash is still absolutely essential for many.  Until it isn't absolutely essential it will remain. 

Your 126 camera comparison is not valid. People who had a 126 film camera (which wasn't essential, ever) merely had to change to another camera - using 110 or 35mm film when 126 film was discontinued. The unit they had to use was still a camera. That is the financial equivalent of when we went metric - the old coins were phased out gradually, but they were replaced with, er, coins.   Removing cash and going cashless is whole different ball-game.

(And, for Ergates, who is confusing the discontinuation of 126 films with the advent of digital cameras, the same argument applies, the unit being used, when digital cameras began, was, again, still a camera)

Cash is essential for a relatively small number of people *now*.   However, none of the reasons for this being the case are insurmountable and there is no reason this has to stay the case.  For instance, people who don't have bank accounts:  There is no reason *something* couldn't be put in place to ensure everyone can have some kind of bank account.   People who don't have a computer and/or internet access:  You don't need either of those to use a cashless payment system.  Business that aren't set up to handle non-cash transactions:  There is no reason they couldn't change.  People who use cash to budget:  Find another way to budget that doesn't use cash.

What we're seeing here is people coming up with reasons why they *can't* switch to cashless, the vast majority of which don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny (most of them just come down to "This is they way I've always done it" and/or "I like cash"), and the remaining genuine issues all seem solvable with a modicum of effort.

Unless you can think of some things that people *need* to use cash for that would be literally impossible to do with a cashless system.


Also I never said anything about digital cameras, that was another poster.

jon81uk

AstonSmith said:

I still want this: I take my phone, type in an amount, tap it against person B's phone and bang. I've sent them money. No numbers. No e-mail addresses. A digital transfer as easy as cash.

The closest in the UK is probably PayM which uses phone numbers, so its at least not an extra number, you can send to the one you already have for someone saved in your contacts.

No-one seems to be working on an overall NFC or Bluetooth system unfortuantly. Some banks offer it but think it is only to users with the same bank.

In the US Apple have a system where you can send money to other users via iMessage and it appears in the Apple Pay Wallet. But they don't seem to want to do it in UK/Europe.

I think a system that will go from any phone to any phone with any bank would need a lot of effort to agree standards unfortuantly.

Rob5342

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

Zanderman said:

Rob5342 said:

libra10 said:

For everyday purchases, cash is king!  If the money isn't in your purse/wallet you can't spend it.

Cash is a great budgeting tool, and what happens when there is a problem with your bank card, or possibly lost it?  

Not everyone has the internet, many older people who have never used computers could lose their independence, having to rely on relatives or friends.

Cards have their uses, but they're not infallible.

If the money is in your account it's always down to you whether you spend it or not. You can get £x out in cash or put £x in your pot or spending account, in either case you can still get more cash out or put more money in your spending account. Cash isn't very good for budgeting as you have no idea where it went, on the other hand I can look in the app and see exactly where everything went. If there is a problem with your bank card and you've lost it then you can cancel it and not be any worse off, if you lose you cash you probably won't get it back.

Computers and the internet have been around so long now that that argument doesn't really hold any water now. An 80 year would have been 52 in 1994, a time when most office work was done on a computer.

In response to points about everyone should be using technology now, the obvious riposte is why? Why should they if they're happy with their current set-up?

From a practical point of view you can only expect things to be catered for if there is sufficient overall demand. If somebody chooses to do something an unpopular way then they can't complain if they are unable to do it in certain situations, It's like choosing to use a 126 film camera, you can't complain and say you'll struggle because boots doesn't sell 126 film any more.

That's not a valid comparison at all. 

Firstly taking pictures is not a necessity of life. Being able to pay for things is.

Secondly 126 cameras became useless as the film cased to be made. Cash has not ceased to be made, and there is still so much demand that an official report says it shouldn't be withdrawn.

And, generally speaking, cash is not 'unpopular'.  That's the whole point - it is still in regular use by a very large number of people. Not by you perhaps but it is by lots of other people.  Which is the point of the report saying it's needed.  

You've missed the point here. A new technology is introduced (debit card/digital camera), people like it and start to move over to it, that starts a dominoe effect where it becomes cheaper/more accepted causing more people to move over to it. Eventually the old technology becomes so unpopular that it's not worth anyone supporting it any more.

It might not be the time to go cashless yet but if people keep adopting cashless methods then eventually cash won't be worth the effort for anyone. Things always move on, we used to barter goods but nobody now would complain that Sainsburys wouldn't swap their live chicken for a bottle of beer.

I'm not missing the point.  Cash is still absolutely essential for many.  Until it isn't absolutely essential it will remain. 

Your 126 camera comparison is not valid. People who had a 126 film camera (which wasn't essential, ever) merely had to change to another camera - using 110 or 35mm film when 126 film was discontinued. The unit they had to use was still a camera. That is the financial equivalent of when we went metric - the old coins were phased out gradually, but they were replaced with, er, coins.   Removing cash and going cashless is whole different ball-game.

(And, for Ergates, who is confusing the discontinuation of 126 films with the advent of digital cameras, the same argument applies, the unit being used, when digital cameras began, was, again, still a camera)

And bartering/cash/debit cards/banking apps are all just trade instruments. When people stopped accepting chickens for beer people had to start using cash, when employers stopped paying in cash people had get it paid into their bank account, when companies stop taking cash people have to use cards instead. 

libra10

Even though some believe that cash isn't a viable option to use these days, partly because it is expensive to keep operating ATM machines etc, surely some of the cost could be paid by banks/building societies from the money they are keeping from offering such dire interest rates to savers these days?  Also the money they are saving by removing their branches from the high street.

Ergates

jon81uk said:

AstonSmith said:

I still want this: I take my phone, type in an amount, tap it against person B's phone and bang. I've sent them money. No numbers. No e-mail addresses. A digital transfer as easy as cash.

The closest in the UK is probably PayM which uses phone numbers, so its at least not an extra number, you can send to the one you already have for someone saved in your contacts.

No-one seems to be working on an overall NFC or Bluetooth system unfortuantly. Some banks offer it but think it is only to users with the same bank.

In the US Apple have a system where you can send money to other users via iMessage and it appears in the Apple Pay Wallet. But they don't seem to want to do it in UK/Europe.

I think a system that will go from any phone to any phone with any bank would need a lot of effort to agree standards unfortuantly.

Most banks have dropped PayM, it never really took off here.   Other places it's been really popular.  So have payments via QR code (e.g. for market traders). 

Ironically many of these payments are popular in what we would normally consider to be much poorer countries - including cashless payment systems that don't require a bank account (it's done via phone accounts) - 

[Deleted User]

Ergates said:

LateNightHunter said:

Mainly hairdressers and takeaways are cash only round here

But there is no logical reason they have to be.

"Cash Only" businesses are usually cash only because they are fiddling/fronting.

Chinese takeaways rarely accept cards and alot are not on platforms like Just Eat neither for that very reason of cash only. Around here most of the English barbers accept cards but the Turkish ones don't.

jon81uk

Ergates said:

jon81uk said:

AstonSmith said:

I still want this: I take my phone, type in an amount, tap it against person B's phone and bang. I've sent them money. No numbers. No e-mail addresses. A digital transfer as easy as cash.

The closest in the UK is probably PayM which uses phone numbers, so its at least not an extra number, you can send to the one you already have for someone saved in your contacts.

No-one seems to be working on an overall NFC or Bluetooth system unfortuantly. Some banks offer it but think it is only to users with the same bank.

In the US Apple have a system where you can send money to other users via iMessage and it appears in the Apple Pay Wallet. But they don't seem to want to do it in UK/Europe.

I think a system that will go from any phone to any phone with any bank would need a lot of effort to agree standards unfortuantly.

Most banks have dropped PayM, it never really took off here.   Other places it's been really popular.  So have payments via QR code (e.g. for market traders). 

Ironically many of these payments are popular in what we would normally consider to be much poorer countries - including cashless payment systems that don't require a bank account (it's done via phone accounts) - 

I’m guessing that’s because in some places they moved to cash alternatives such as payment via QR code, whereas here market traders went with accepting existing payment cards (via PIN and contactless), especially with the rise of services like Square.