Yahoo Finance Resort's 'ridiculous' cashless excuse as Aussies cop $4b hit: 'Screwing over people who can least afford it'
More businesses are refusing cash payments than ever before, but don't pretend it's for hygiene reasons.
The excuses being concocted by Australian businesses for not accepting cash are becoming more and more ridiculous. The latest example was this sign at a Queensland resort, which my friend and fellow consumer advocate Christopher Zinn spotted recently and called a “bulls**t excuse”.
I agree. As one person commented, "Do they disinfect the keypad every time someone enters their PIN?”
Of course not. We’re not idiots. We all know why businesses want to go cashless: it costs them less because they don’t have to pay to keep the money secure and move it around; it’s harder for their employees to steal; and it shifts the cost of payments to the customer, who pays a bank or credit card company each time they tap a card.
Do you have a story? Email yahoo.finance.au@yahooinc.com
Cash only makes up 12 per cent of transactions and it’s plummeted in popularity from 68 per cent in 2007.
Some smaller banks have already gone cashless and “between 2017 and 2023, bank branch numbers declined by 37 per cent and the number of bank-owned ATMs fell from 13,814 to just 5,693,” according to Steve Worthington at Swinburne University of Technology.
For a lot of us that’s just fine. We want to pay by tapping a card or a phone.
RELATED
Cashless ‘fear’ as date Australia will ditch physical money is revealed
Banks reveal impact after Aussies try to drain ATMs in cashless protest
It’s easier and it means we don’t need to carry a wallet (in fact, carrying a wallet is now seen as evidence that you’re old).
But for a minority of people, cash is still king and they’re getting fed up. It’s legal tender and a handy money-saving strategy and some people don’t want to let it go.
Facebook groups with names like “Cash Welcome” and "Call out Cashless Businesses" have hundreds of thousands of members. The hashtag #cashisking has around 250,000 posts each on Facebook and Instagram.
I have some sympathy for the #cashisking movement.
Sure, some of them are conspiracy theorists who think the government wants to track their spending and others are crooks who need the cash economy to hide their dirty money, but most are just older or poorer people who aren’t tech-savvy or don’t trust banks, or frugal people who have found they spend less when they use cash.
My fellow finance expert Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon once did a three-month experiment where she only used cash and found she spent 35 per cent less. In the end it was too much of a hassle but the point was made: cash users spend less.
We’re also paying for the privilege of tapping.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) estimates the average cost for Eftpos to be under 0.5 per cent, but when you “tap & go” with a debit card you pay between 0.5 per cent and 1 per cent, and if you tap a credit card it’s 1-1.5 per cent. A Square terminal fee is 1.90 per cent.
We lead the world in tapping and going, and it costs us $4 billion a year, according to Canstar. Other estimates reckon we pay $140 a year on average in surcharges, with around half of cafes and restaurants now charging them.
When the surcharge isn’t passed on, it’s safe to assume many retailers add the cost to their prices anyhow.
We’re such big tappers that the cash transport business Armaguard is now in danger of collapse, with the RBA, supermarkets and banks all working together to find a solution.
Unfortunately for the #cashisking mob, businesses don’t have to accept cash. As legal tender, it must be accepted to settle payment of a debt, but that’s not the same thing apparently.
It’s inevitable that we will go mostly cashless as a society, but not anytime soon.
“There’s $100 billion worth of notes out there,” said banking industry lobbyist Anna Bligh. "More than eighteen $100 notes for every living Australian”.
Banks and the RBA need to put some dates and some rules in place so that it’s a gradual and smooth transition, not the current free-for-all.
And businesses need to understand they will cop blowback if they go cashless too quickly, because they’re screwing over the people who can least afford it.
Get the latest Yahoo Finance news - follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
