Cashless society is making victims of the vulnerable: Andrew Vine

Twice in recent days I’ve encountered reluctance in shops when offering cash for everyday small purchases like newspapers, milk and bread, with staff saying pointedly that they preferred payment by card.

One assistant regarded a couple of pound coins with all the distaste of somebody being handed a rotting fish, and ostentatiously put on a pair of disposable plastic gloves before taking them and rolling her eyes as she was counting change.

Sorry, but cash remains legal tender, and if I choose to pay with the loose change in my pocket instead of a card, I’ve every right to do so.

In common with countless other people, that means I don’t have to faff about totting up small card transactions of a pound or two here and there in order to keep track of how much is in my bank account. It’s easier and simpler to pay with what I have on me.

Covid has provided the perfect excuse for a redoubling of the assault on cash transactions that has been gathering pace for the past few years.

Those advocating a move to an entirely cashless society have been given added impetus by fears that handling notes and coins risks infection.

Despite the Bank of England commissioning a scientific study of the risk last year, which concluded it was negligible, a hostility to cash has taken root amongst retailers that threatens its demise.

There are those who welcome the move to a cashless society, but I’m not one of them. In the past two years, 1,200 bank branches and 9,000 cash machines have gone, the clearest indication that banks regard in-person custom and the use of cash as inconveniences to be discouraged.

In the meantime, this brave new world of cashless transactions and online banking has seen an explosion in fraud, the ultimate victims of which are customers who have been pushed away from using cash by the institutions they trust to look after their money.

And abandoning cash will make victims of many more, with the elderly, poor and disabled the hardest-hit. Two years ago, a Government review of access to cash concluded that eight million people would be left unable to be paid, or manage their household budgets if transactions became card-only or online. Among them are those with bank accounts who dare not go into debt because their income is so precarious, so budget by withdrawing a week’s cash to live on.

For many more on zero-hours contracts that don’t provide a reliable income – or who have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic – using cash is the only sure way of keeping track of what they have. And how many of us who help an elderly neighbour with shopping would be willing to take their debit card in order to do it?

I certainly wouldn’t. Being handed a £20 note and bringing back groceries with the till receipt and the change is fine, but under no circumstances would I agree to using their card. What if, subsequently, a thief hacks their account and a finger is pointed at me?

We simply can’t allow millions of the most vulnerable people in society to become second-class citizens by turning away from cash, especially at the behest of vastly wealthy banks which are already making it as difficult as possible for many to access their money.

The Consumers’ Association has flagged up the difficulties this is causing, and to its credit the Government has been explicit that it will ensure retailers have to accept cash for the foreseeable future.

But it’s up to us as consumers to do our bit as well, by politely but firmly maintaining that we’d like to pay with cash, thank you very much, in spite of the notices demanding cards be used and the disapproving looks from shop staff.

It also means emailing our banks, as I did with mine last week, to complain about branch closures and the loss of a nearby cash machine where I routinely withdrew the money to pay for everyday bits and pieces.

A cashless society might look like a Utopia to some, especially in the higher echelons of consumer banking, but to millions of others it would be a nightmare and that’s why we should hold it at bay.

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