Joining me is Dr. Richard Holden, Professor of Economics at the University of NSW, futurist and author of Money in the Twenty-First Century: Cheap, Mobile, and Digital. And Kylie Hall from CBA.
The percentage of cash transactions is higher than any professor of economics would be able to calculate. I live in a small country town, and volunteer at our local community run op shop. Cash only. My daughters church run playgroup in Brisbane- cash only. Sales of raffle tickets for little local charities and church groups in little country towns- cash only. Such little charities can't afford internet access, mobile phone plans and square readers. Thank God for cash. It's portable, doesn't need any hardware to operate and doesn't need power or internet access. There is a whole other world in the country that professors would be totally unaware of. If cashless comes in, local communities may work out their own barter systems with some local currency printed.
I am totally fed up with all the fees that places like hotels charge you, yet they are the ones who no longer accept cash. I also live in Far North Queensland where we have cyclones etc and the first thing out is electricity and so being able to use cards is not possible. There are no systems in place for power outages etc. Being so dependent on an unreliable power system is just stupid. Lets face it our power system is one of our biggest problems into the future. One day I was in Bunnigs when the eftpos system failed, it was bedlam, and only 1 staff member knew how to use the old manual card thing with the individual paperslip , and then they ran out of the slips.
Variety of payment methods is worth keeping. Cash-don't-crash. Financial institutions make obscene profits and should be forced to retain the cash method for those that prefer it, and absorb the costs of cash via their obscene profits, which us the customers have previously paid for and will likely to continue to fund. Ask someone from Cuba, Ukraine or Lebanon how they're enjoying a lack of power or internet and how effective electronic transactions are atm. By all means automate-automate-automate, but do so with effective retention of reliable redundancy methods to transact = cash.
Australia has already experienced multiple infrastructure failures recently, this will repeat and probably more often. We as a country have already passed our peak wealth phase of reliable government owned infrastructure. Now much of it is privatised and vulnerable to OT (operational tech) challenges that are getting better as offshore hostile government backed hackers abilities to exploit at grand scale improves faster than private organisation's OT can keep up. If toilet paper shortages were a bother, power or internet outages will be more so. I also like cash in group restaurant settings where everyone simply contributes a few bucks more than their bill, which adds up to a decent amount of tips for the table-staff to enjoy. Instead of electronic, where the staff get no tip, but the financial institution does, via their % fees. I'd rather see the staff get that.
I watched an interview with a social worker who was impacted by the Commonwealth Bank's double-up on charges placed on credit cards.
This bloke was unable to pay for his morning coffee and and was unsure about how he was going to get home.
I make it a point to never leave the house without a minimum amount of cash in my wallet and top it up ASAP after using cash.
So, when people are stuck in line because EFTPOS has gone down (the most common occurrence) I go to the front, pay for my stuff and I'm on my way. If I'm travelling through rural areas, cash can be king.
The discussion around the removal of cash fails to provide a voice for those who are unable to advocate for themselves. People with reduced capacity- whether elderly or disabled- understand cash. Removing cash without a thorough understanding of cash use in the disability and aged care sectors would leave already vulnerable people exposed to further trauma and abuse. How do the anti cash proponents plan to assist these vulnerable groups to transition?
This was a really interesting podcast. It seems that yes, cashless is inevitable... but as Lisa Reed has said below - where does this leave the small country towns - especially with very 'wobbly' internet connections! If Telstra cannot make its way reliably and daily to rural / remote regions without hiccups... how can cashless work? And I'm curious as to how the 'small sales' will work such as those on Facebook Marketplace? And garage sales? And school fetes? The times when we are selling little things rather than sending very usable, 2nd hand items, to landfill... and to just get a few coins in return... to then purchase another small item from someone else - again, preventing landfill issues. Where will our friendly barter systems go?? While going cashless seems inevitable, and advantageous in many ways, as pointed out on the podcast, it also seems we'll be losing yet another aspect of the 'it takes a village' side of things too.
my only concern if the power goes out how do we pay for anything every thing is run by computers which need power I vote cash stays until they sort that out
I am a small business owner. I have surcharge on my eftpos terminal. The perventages are set by the provider. My business definitely does not make extra money from card surcharges.
So I am confused as to why Mr Holden states that small retailers are making money from eftpos surcharges. The benefit to retailers is that the fees are charged to the credit card holder, who also gets rewards for spending. Someone has to pay for the rewards.
Is it possible to get clarification on who actually makes money from eftpos surcharges? I believe it is the terminal providers...tyro, smartpay, square etc.
The percentage of cash transactions is higher than any professor of economics would be able to calculate. I live in a small country town, and volunteer at our local community run op shop. Cash only. My daughters church run playgroup in Brisbane- cash only. Sales of raffle tickets for little local charities and church groups in little country towns- cash only. Such little charities can't afford internet access, mobile phone plans and square readers. Thank God for cash. It's portable, doesn't need any hardware to operate and doesn't need power or internet access. There is a whole other world in the country that professors would be totally unaware of. If cashless comes in, local communities may work out their own barter systems with some local currency printed.
I am totally fed up with all the fees that places like hotels charge you, yet they are the ones who no longer accept cash. I also live in Far North Queensland where we have cyclones etc and the first thing out is electricity and so being able to use cards is not possible. There are no systems in place for power outages etc. Being so dependent on an unreliable power system is just stupid. Lets face it our power system is one of our biggest problems into the future. One day I was in Bunnigs when the eftpos system failed, it was bedlam, and only 1 staff member knew how to use the old manual card thing with the individual paperslip , and then they ran out of the slips.
Variety of payment methods is worth keeping. Cash-don't-crash. Financial institutions make obscene profits and should be forced to retain the cash method for those that prefer it, and absorb the costs of cash via their obscene profits, which us the customers have previously paid for and will likely to continue to fund. Ask someone from Cuba, Ukraine or Lebanon how they're enjoying a lack of power or internet and how effective electronic transactions are atm. By all means automate-automate-automate, but do so with effective retention of reliable redundancy methods to transact = cash.
Australia has already experienced multiple infrastructure failures recently, this will repeat and probably more often. We as a country have already passed our peak wealth phase of reliable government owned infrastructure. Now much of it is privatised and vulnerable to OT (operational tech) challenges that are getting better as offshore hostile government backed hackers abilities to exploit at grand scale improves faster than private organisation's OT can keep up. If toilet paper shortages were a bother, power or internet outages will be more so. I also like cash in group restaurant settings where everyone simply contributes a few bucks more than their bill, which adds up to a decent amount of tips for the table-staff to enjoy. Instead of electronic, where the staff get no tip, but the financial institution does, via their % fees. I'd rather see the staff get that.
I watched an interview with a social worker who was impacted by the Commonwealth Bank's double-up on charges placed on credit cards.
This bloke was unable to pay for his morning coffee and and was unsure about how he was going to get home.
I make it a point to never leave the house without a minimum amount of cash in my wallet and top it up ASAP after using cash.
So, when people are stuck in line because EFTPOS has gone down (the most common occurrence) I go to the front, pay for my stuff and I'm on my way. If I'm travelling through rural areas, cash can be king.
The discussion around the removal of cash fails to provide a voice for those who are unable to advocate for themselves. People with reduced capacity- whether elderly or disabled- understand cash. Removing cash without a thorough understanding of cash use in the disability and aged care sectors would leave already vulnerable people exposed to further trauma and abuse. How do the anti cash proponents plan to assist these vulnerable groups to transition?
This was a really interesting podcast. It seems that yes, cashless is inevitable... but as Lisa Reed has said below - where does this leave the small country towns - especially with very 'wobbly' internet connections! If Telstra cannot make its way reliably and daily to rural / remote regions without hiccups... how can cashless work? And I'm curious as to how the 'small sales' will work such as those on Facebook Marketplace? And garage sales? And school fetes? The times when we are selling little things rather than sending very usable, 2nd hand items, to landfill... and to just get a few coins in return... to then purchase another small item from someone else - again, preventing landfill issues. Where will our friendly barter systems go?? While going cashless seems inevitable, and advantageous in many ways, as pointed out on the podcast, it also seems we'll be losing yet another aspect of the 'it takes a village' side of things too.
my only concern if the power goes out how do we pay for anything every thing is run by computers which need power I vote cash stays until they sort that out
I am a small business owner. I have surcharge on my eftpos terminal. The perventages are set by the provider. My business definitely does not make extra money from card surcharges.
So I am confused as to why Mr Holden states that small retailers are making money from eftpos surcharges. The benefit to retailers is that the fees are charged to the credit card holder, who also gets rewards for spending. Someone has to pay for the rewards.
Is it possible to get clarification on who actually makes money from eftpos surcharges? I believe it is the terminal providers...tyro, smartpay, square etc.