Cashless society

[Bellcose]

Do you really think the next generation will be doing things in person at branches?

I just gave my niece a gift card, and within a few minutes she had scanned it with here phone put it in the bin, it’s now an entry in her “digital wallet”, ready to spend.

It's amazing in some respects. A quote from an RBA review.

"Non-cash payments account for most of the value of payments in the Australian economy. On average, in 2023 non-cash payments worth around $300 billion were made each business day, equivalent to around 11 per cent of annual GDP."

A high proportion (70%) of those were for settlement of foreign exchange and securities market transactions. That leaves $90 billion per day for other transactions. That's a lot of daily coffees.

 

[Bellcose]

I found this an interesting read.

The Cash Landscape in Australia

www.banknotes.rba.gov.au

Funny in a way. Any notes you may have in your wallet are simply a form of polymer with printing on them. Much like bearer bonds in the days of yore.

 

[Value Collector]

It's amazing in some respects. A quote from an RBA review.

"Non-cash payments account for most of the value of payments in the Australian economy. On average, in 2023 non-cash payments worth around $300 billion were made each business day, equivalent to around 11 per cent of annual GDP."

A high proportion (70%) of those were for settlement of foreign exchange and securities market transactions. That leaves $90 billion per day for other transactions. That's a lot of daily coffees.

It’s not just daily coffee, I mean people and businesses pay all sorts of bills digitally, when I ran a business I was buying about $50,000 of stock a month using my card.

Cash is extremely impractical for all the large purchases that get made regularly, that’s why we invested checks, but checks are far inferior to card transactions.

 

[Value Collector]

I found this an interesting read.

The Cash Landscape in Australia

www.banknotes.rba.gov.au

Funny in a way. Any notes you may have in your wallet are simply a form of polymer with printing on them. Much like bearer bonds in the days of yore.

The most interesting part is the massive decline in the usage of cash, and with most of the costs of cash handling being fixed, you can see why it’s getting exponentially more expensive to provide cash services to a shrinking base of regular users.

 

[moXJO]

Do you really think the next generation will be doing things in person at branches?

I just gave my niece a gift card, and within a few minutes she had scanned it with here phone put it in the bin, it’s now an entry in her “digital wallet”, ready to spend.

Complete different subject. They are constantly fed a stream of anti establishment social media. Banks will be lucky to survive if competition was let in.

Cash is something that needs to be maintained for security reasons. You know the whole previous 110 pages of arguments.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

cheques

 

[Bellcose]

The most interesting part is the massive decline in the usage of cash, and with most of the costs of cash handling being fixed, you can see why it’s getting exponentially more expensive to provide cash services to a shrinking base of regular users.

That may be so but at least the RBA recognises that cash is essential for a number of reasons and the RBA review details a number of those aspects.

I use cash but not so much. For a trip of a week I took some readies along just in case. Didn't need to as even in small places such as Bemboka, EFTPOS was available. Probably still have $100 and some change hanging about. Cannot be fussed going to a bank to deposit it so it'll gradually get used for something. A pair of shoelaces or socks more than likely. Bugs me when the price is $6.99 and I don't get 1c change. Highway robbery.

 

[Bellcose]

Cash is something that needs to be maintained for security reasons.

Only if the Government continues to honour it or the person who receives that piece of plastic from you trusts that's real.

 

[JohnDe]

Complete different subject. They are constantly fed a stream of anti establishment social media. Banks will be lucky to survive if competition was let in.

Cash is something that needs to be maintained for security reasons. You know the whole previous 110 pages of arguments.

The banks and financial service companies like Visa and MC don't want cash to survive, thier profits depend on the death of cash.

Many consumers don't know how much they are paying in fees; it is only in tough times that they learn.

The cashless system uses different fees for different size businesses. A large business will get a better discoun of merchant fees than a small business, creating unfair competition.

Cash is the great equaliser.

However, the decline in cash usage, increased prevalence of surcharging and changes in the way merchants are charged for card payments have led to reasonable concerns about the current framework. In particular:

• Fewer consumers transact with cash today and are therefore unable to avoid card surcharges at the point-of-sale.
• Many small merchants are now on blended or single-rate payment plans that charge the same fee to merchants for accepting all types of cards. This dulls the price signal to consumers, and can mean users of cheaper card payments cross-subsidise users of more expensive cards.
• Consumers are sometimes unaware of the surcharge amount before paying and/or surcharged for amounts in excess of merchants’ cost of acceptance.[9]

The future of cash​

While cash use has declined in recent decades, it remains an important means of payment for many folks in our community (Graph 6). A significant number of Australians still primarily rely on cash to participate in the economy, including our more vulnerable members of society. Cash remains an important store of value, particularly during periods of economic uncertainty. And in serving as a backup means of payment when electronic payment methods are unavailable, including during system outages or natural disasters, cash helps to promote a more resilient payment system overall. For these reasons, the government and the RBA remain committed to supporting access to cash.

The Future of the Payments System | Speeches

Speech delivered by Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System), AusPayNet Summit 2024, Sydney

www.rba.gov.au

 

[Bellcose]

The cashless system uses different fees for different size businesses. A large business will get a better discoun of merchant fees than a small business, creating unfair competition.

This is a bone of contention with me. While I accept there is a cost to maintain and upgrade the payment systems, it don't see how it can be justified for a fee to increase according to the purchase. If it cost $0.08 for $5.00 those electrons are not working any harder to process $20 for the fee to increase to $0.23. Same with those business where there is a percentage surcharge even when using a debit card. I'm OK for paying a fee for the convenience of using a system but these sliding scales are irksome. To be honest though I haven't done much business with those business. Maybe a coffee now and then and take-away food from a restaurant every so often.

I am assuming the businesses are only passing on the charge made to them by the banks and not front loading.

 

[JohnDe]

This is a bone of contention with me. While I accept there is a cost to maintain and upgrade the payment systems, it don't see how it can be justified for a fee to increase according to the purchase. If it cost $0.08 for $5.00 those electrons are not working any harder to process $20 for the fee to increase to $0.23. Same with those business where there is a percentage surcharge even when using a debit card. I'm OK for paying a fee for the convenience of using a system but these sliding scales are irksome. To be honest though I haven't done much business with those business. Maybe a coffee now and then and take-away food from a restaurant every so often.

I am assuming the businesses are only passing on the charge made to them by the banks and not front loading.

And the businesses that wear the cost of transaction fees are starting to feel the pain in these high cost/high inflation times. A brewery caft that I enjoy has been a successful business since 2010 have not passed on the cost cashless payment, but are now looking to introduce a charge in the new year -

Cash is king but who pays with cash? – Over the past 2 years, cash payments for beer and food have become a rarity. EFTPOS transactions represent over 90% of all our transactions and the bank fees are staggeringly high and amount to 10’s of thousands of Dollars for our business each year. At present, we absorb these costs but may not be able to do so in 2025. Our business encourages cash payments as we would rather spend less money on bank fees and return this to our customers and staff. We will run a ‘pay in cash campaign’ in early 2025 and depending on the outcome, decide if we will have to pass on the EFTPOS transactions fees.

I'm happy to say that I don't mind withdrawing my cash and paying with cash, helps everyone and I get to meet and talk to people.

Cashless society

@Garpal Gumnut Now just surmising. If the king of the cashless world was to be nabbed and held for ransom, would a credit card payment be acceptable ???? according to the lady at Coles, gift cards are a favoured prize of scammers, maybe kidnappers will also want a bunch of gift cards o_O

www.aussiestockforums.com

 

[farmerge]

cheques

checks-- USA spelling perhaps still extremely poor English for Australia

 

[Value Collector]

This is a bone of contention with me. While I accept there is a cost to maintain and upgrade the payment systems, it don't see how it can be justified for a fee to increase according to the purchase. If it cost $0.08 for $5.00 those electrons are not working any harder to process $20 for the fee to increase to $0.23. Same with those business where there is a percentage surcharge even when using a debit card. I'm OK for paying a fee for the convenience of using a system but these sliding scales are irksome. To be honest though I haven't done much business with those business. Maybe a coffee now and then and take-away food from a restaurant every so often.

I am assuming the businesses are only passing on the charge made to them by the banks and not front loading.

The system charges are mostly based on percentage of sales put through the system.

It’s just a way to spread the huge fixed costs across the users putting the most dollar value through the system.

It allows some one selling a $1 pack of gum to only pay 1 cent in fees, and a person selling $100 thing paying $1 fee.

If you divided the costs equally across a per transaction basis, selling the pack of gum would be problematic because of the fee being to high.

 

[Value Collector]

Complete different subject. They are constantly fed a stream of anti establishment social media. Banks will be lucky to survive if competition was let in.

Cash is something that needs to be maintained for security reasons. You know the whole previous 110 pages of arguments.

As I said I am not against maintaining cash, but I feel it should be user pays, just like the digital system, and if it is really a national security issue, they the government should pay the costs.