The movement to ‘no cash’ promoted by the four big banks and supported by a bevvy of retailers has really gotten under my skin! I use cash to control my spending and it works well for me. I also object to using the ‘tap and go’ system of payment, as I don’t like having to potentially pay a fee to access my own money to pay my bills.
Sadly, the rest of the world is rapidly using the tap card system and apps to pay their bills. Sweden was the first acknowledged country to embrace the cashless method of payment. A group of Swedish banks created a mobile payment app named Swish in 2012 and now more than 80% of the Swedish population have a Swish account. In the United Kingdom, debit card usage overtook the use of cash in 2017 and that trend has since increased substantially.
I acknowledge that we live in a digital age and that digital payments will almost certainly become the norm. Buying online and ‘tap and go’ are just two examples of how simple it is to digitally transact business.
Big Profits, Fewer Branches, and What We Might Lose
But let us pause a minute and ask, “Is there another side to this cashless society movement?” Have you noticed the plethora of bank branch and ATM closures and the resultant bank staff dismissals? You don’t need branches, ATMs or staff when you are in a ‘cashless’ era!
Recently, the now privatised Commonwealth Bank announced a staggering $5.1 billion half-yearly profit, much to the delight of its CEO, who is paid an annual salary of $7.3 million and to its shareholders as well. This, while the rest of us struggle to pay our mortgages and even for commodities such as groceries! Governments of all persuasions struggle with a volatile economy, offering power discounts and cheap public transport fees to assist an increasingly financially hard-pressed public.
But hopefully, we will have a little way to go before the Perth Mint closes. According to estimates five years ago, there were 140 billion Aussie dollars’ worth of notes still in circulation worldwide. And that was roughly double what it was a decade previously.
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