The campaign to keep cash?
This post is based on a podcast I recently listened to. Specifically, a comment I left for the podcast. The podcast in question is Those Vicar Blokes; worth a listen.
As you’ve almost certainly surmised, amongst the topics Dave & Hywel were discussing is cash, whether it should be retained.
The banks, and I think the government would like to see a cashless society. The banks probably because electronic/digital money is cheaper than handling cash; their eyes are on their profits (already in £billions). The government, I suspect, because they can always know what money we have got, how we spend it and, potentially, if we are trying to hide some.
Although I rarely use cash these days, I firmly believe that it should be kept.
Cash is a useful tool for teaching children about money. With cash a child can hold in his or her hand, he or she will always know exactly how much they have got, or not got. With a payment card, of the wrong type, a child might easily be tempted to overspend. Suppose a child’s pre-paid card had been overspent and that child had insufficient funds on it for a bus fare home. With cash the child would always know.
And what about people who rely on cash for budgeting, keeping up with bills and shopping. Just like the children, as suggested in the previous paragraph, someone on a tight budget always knows how much cash they have available to spend.
Think too about charities. Demise of cash would probably dent their income. While collecting in the street, people will often drop some change into the collection bucket whilst passing. How many of those same people would take the time to get out a payment card or smartphone to make a payment to a charity?
Let’s not forget the social element of using cash, too. For some people, I am thinking here mainly of people on a pension, cash is an opportunity for social interaction with other people. Going to a bank or post office to draw their pension or withdraw cash from an account, gives them a reason to go out. Some, perhaps even a majority, of older people are not happy handling their finances in front of a faceless, anonymous screen.
Entertaining Angels 