You may have been following our social media series the #12DaysofCash over the Christmas period. If so, you’ll know that cash is under attack on two fronts: banks are making it harder to access cash, whilst retailers are making it more difficult to use.
4,514 UK bank branches have closed since 2015, 736 of those in the last year alone, and hundreds more are already planned for 2022. Branches are a vital access point for free cash withdrawals for people across the country, but banks are closing them en masse to cut staffing costs and avoid the fees they have to pay to the Link ATM network.
Meanwhile, one in three shoppers were refused service during the start of the pandemic when trying to pay with cash. This rejection of legal tender has been justified on the grounds that cash could transmit Covid, despite no evidence to suggest that it’s any less hygienic than card terminals or PIN pads.
Banks aren’t the only private players who stand to gain from the disappearance of cash. Payments companies, like Visa and Mastercard, become unrivalled in a cashless society; free to raise card fees unchecked. Retail giants, too, are able to fully automate the payments process if no physical money is exchanged – eradicating any need to pay human staff.
Cash is our last defence against potential authoritarian surveillance from the state – or an abusive partner, as the women’s charity Refuge found – and it prevents the financial
— source positivemoney.org | Chloe Musto | Jan 6, 2022