I don't use cash often, but it would be a shame to see it go completely. Privacy concerns aside - It does come in handy for in-person marketplace type transactions to avoid the payid scams that are running rife at the moment.
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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I've actually gone back to using cash when most merchants are Charing a 1.5% card fee. Fuck that shit.
Yeah same. I'd be really interested to know what the cost of cash is, my guess is more than 1.5% with the extra effort needing to be put into banking, slower transactions, mistakes and fake notes. Seems like most businesses are just assuming laziness of their customers just wanting to tap.
It's a tax dodge. You can skim off the top easier with cash.
Well, that and the fact that every credit card transaction includes a transaction fee that the business ends up paying. When they add 1.5% (I've usually seen 2.5%) they're just moving the expense from being hidden inside the list price of the things you're buying to being added at the register.
Think of it like a "bank tax” in addition to sales tax. Business could easily include tax in the price, but they don't because customers are used to seeing the lower price and having tax added at the register.
Right, but as @tfyoung said above, there are costs to the business associated with cash as well. Probably much higher, if a little harder to precisely calculate.
The time and expense associated with handling, counting, and physically banking cash is not insignificant.
It's that harder to calculate part that makes some business favor cash. After all, the humans running the business are not perfect economic machines. Some people are going to favor a nebulous expense (that they honestly probably didn't consider at all) over a clear and obvious expense.
Or, more likely, want to encourage people to use cash so they can evade taxes
I often opt-out of stores that add a bonus fee when the transaction is high enough that it should be their operating cost, but pretty much 100% of utility bills have are tacking their fees onto the next bill.
It seems like a very anti-consumer practice that is going to become ubiquitous.
I hate where this is going, but accept that it is inevitable. As much as I value my privacy, I've well and truly fallen into the trap of using tap and pay with my phone. I don't think I've carried cash in any meaningful quantity for years now.
im in the same boat. it is so much easier.
Maybe it could be nationalised though, in the same way that currency is nationalised. That way the costs of managing it could be part of our way of life, not by a specific bank, or that datra being sold to various thrid parties.
That's not a bad idea. At the very least, let's take it back out of the hands of big tech. They can't be trusted.
Its not the article is more garbage from the ABC.
The amount of cash in the economy is higher than ever before.
Welcome to the Australia community. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with people, however it is clear to me that you are just trying to have a go at the ABC (as you have done previously). If you want to do that don't do it here - or if you do have some evidence that cash use is actually increasing in Australia feel free to post it.
Thank you for your understanding
Go back to Reddit clown.
Without the establishment of a comparable (in terms of barrier to entry and ease of use) privacy respecting alternative, the complete disappearance of cash is a problem. I don't use it for many transactions myself, but others should absolutely have the right to opt out if they so choose.
Every month or two I make the trek to the local bank to get some $1 coins for the laundry in our apartment complex.
Aside from that, I use Apple Pay for nearly all in-person transactions, PayID for sending money to friends and family, and my credit card online.
I'm approaching 30 and haven't actively carried cash in over a decade.
Attended a “gold coin donation” event at a local school recently and it was a struggle to find actual coins! I dig some up from the couch cushions, but then they had a card reader at the door anyway, so I needn’t have bothered.
Yep, and it's used a shit load for tax avoidance so would probably be fairer as a whole if we just dropped it
My local laundromat has replaced their machine payments with paypass.
The central issue is control. I'm happy to use EFTPOS but would definitely not want to see cash disappear as it's not something governments can easily track and/or move.
I stopped using cash nearly a decade ago and it feels extremely antiquated, but the future of money is scary to think about.
Some places are no longer accepting cash.
Still a few hairdressers and restaurants in my area that only take cash tho
For whatever they save avoiding tax etc, they also lose business from people who don't want to carry cash, go to atm & have change left.
Can't they track via cash serial numbers yet?
Lame...
I really wish there was a properly private digital currency that wasn't crypto. I hate using physical money ever since covid hit, it's just so dirty.
just spit on your money to make it your germs
I don't know... my dad will find a way to give me cash instead putting it into my account.
I say that as if I'm like 15. No, I saw him on the weekend and he gave me birthday money, and the place we went to accepted card for the most part, I asked him "can I give this back to you and you can send me money" and he's like "nahh don't worry". Had to go to my local bank to deposit it.
Personally I like the novelty of a $100 note since I basically never seen them outside of a birthday.
That's about the only thing I use cash for these days myself. Birthday money. The money I tend to receive sits in my wallet until it's time for someone else's birthday. Then it goes in their cards.
I should mark it or something to see if I then get it back next birthday. :P
FYI you can now deposit cash at the post office. You need to supply a bank card to identify the account, but there's no fees involved.
I noticed that last night when my sister picked up a birthday present. That's pretty cool tbh.
I still open every card with cash falling out.
I do like having no cash, since it's handy, but at the same time, we need a better system for dealing with no cash that isn't just going to cost money to process.
Otherwise, if you don't have cash, or the money to pay the surcharge/processing fees, you're rather scuffed.
I'm split about digital currency.
I bet that the "competition" from cash being out there is preventing the card suppliers and others from jacking up their fees. Losing cash would guarantee that we move to 3, 4 or even more percent fees. It would be bad all round. Having said that I never use cash anymore. I don't even carry a wallet.
I very rarely use cash at this point. I'm not really surprised.
The point of the article is that cash has fees and costs per transaction and per day that are getting larger as cash is used less. We as customers just don't see them. Transport, security, transactions all cost businesses and in places where cash is not much used, and for instance country towns, those costs can be prohibitive for merchants. Those card fees are right now probably less than cash costs.
I'm thinking of moving entirely to cash even though I'm more likely to lose it than my card. Sick of everyone getting rich off the data I provide.