Are fears over the cashless society exaggerated? Ciara O’Brien versus Conor Pope

Ciara O’Brien: Yes. Idea of withdrawing enough cash to cover the weekly expenses gives me anxiety

If you want to start a row in a crowded room, announce loudly that you are in favour of cashless payments. There is bound to be someone in there who will have strong feelings on why the new technology needs to be stamped out and is bad for society. But is it?

I am fully on board with cashless. Of course I am. I was one of the first people using Apple Pay in Ireland, back when it was an oddity and shop staff would give you funny looks as you tapped your phone instead of the card.

The emergency tenner stashed in the back of my wallet has remained unused for eight months and counting. The number of times when I use cash has dwindled. Occasionally I scramble around the kids’ piggy banks for coins (paying them back into their Revolut accounts), but my window cleaner takes Revolut. School collections have embraced fintech too, and most fundraising activities are done through via card payment. It’s more secure than handing your eight year old an envelope of cash and hoping that they remember to hand it over at some point in the school day.

Going cashless isn’t for everyone. Or – should we say – mostly cashless. No one is prying the last few coins from your hands, at least not if the EU has anything to do with it. Cash has a role, albeit a smaller one, and there are people who would be disadvantaged by solely digital payments.

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I am that deeply suspect Irish creature, a mother of an only child. It was by choice

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But there are good reasons why relying on cash all the time isn’t great either. My first job was working in retail. When you count cash for a living you realise one thing: money is dirty. Not metaphorically, but physically, smell-it-on-your-hands, might-give-you-impetigo filthy. And not to mention some of the places I’ve seen people pull the cash from when paying at the till, but let’s just say Covid wasn’t the instigator of my frequent handwashing routine.

[ Paying a price for the cashless society ]

For businesses, cash costs money. There are security arrangements to consider – not cheap. In the time I worked in retail, no one held up the shop for card receipts, but cash was a target. There’s also the cost of having staff counting cash at the end of the day. That eventually gets passed on to the consumer.

On the flip side, costs associated with accepting card payments can largely cancel out the savings, but some businesses have decided that – along with the efficiency – it is worth it. These days, I rarely leave the house with anything more than a phone in my pocket when heading to the shop. It is 2023 and women are still celebrating the occasions when our clothing comes with usable pockets (but that is another debate); I don’t need a bundle of coins sloshing around in there too.

[ Cashless society would give banks way too much power ]

And as a back-up, I have cards on my smartwatch.

The idea of withdrawing and carrying enough cash with me to cover the weekly expenses gives me a level of anxiety that outweighs the buzz that the Facebook posts promise I’ll feel from embracing cash again. If I lose my phone, it is unlikely that anyone can break the biometric security on my phone, or the passcode (now that I’ve changed it from 1111). Cards can be frozen; digital wallets disabled remotely. If I lose cash, the chances of it ever being recovered are slim.

When you count cash for a living you realise one thing: money is dirty. Not metaphorically, but physically, smell-it-on-your-hands, might-give-you-impetigo filthy

Fears of banks freezing your assets are often used as reason for resisting cashless payments. Bad news: unless you get paid each week or month in cash – a rare situation these days – a bank is involved at some stage of the process so ditching card payments won’t eliminate that.

Things change fast. For my children, cash is a novelty rather than a necessity. Mobile payments and Revolut accounts are the norm. My parents, hovering around the 70 mark, have gone cashless for almost everything these days. And the ones in between those age groups are already on board with digital. Everything we’ve embraced was new once; cashless payments are no different.

Ciara O’Brien is a business and technology journalist

Conor Pope: No. Those who rely on cash are increasingly made to feel stupid, old or out of touch

I can’t remember the last time I used cash or went to an ATM. I must have done both a couple of times this year but, for me, such moments are vanishingly rare and entirely forgettable. I don’t use my debit card much either, with virtually all my transactions – from paying an M4 toll last Friday to doing my big shop on Saturday and buying an ill-advised T-shirt off a market stall on the same day – are done on my phone. I spent two weeks in Portugal last summer and didn’t use cash once.

I don’t miss real money in the slightest and – with some serious Photoshopping, granted – I’d make a fine poster child for a cashless new world.

But I‘d have no place on such a poster because, while I don’t use real money and actively dislike it, I value it greatly and know we will succumb to the charms of the virtual alternative at our peril.

Cash is not just important, it is essential for many hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland who will be further marginalised and excluded if we continue to buy into a narrative driven by banks, retailers, airlines, public services and even the GAA – that cash has been dethroned and there’s a new virtual king in town.

It would be one thing if proponents of the cashless society were truthful about this relentless march away from money. But they’re not. We are, instead, seduced by talk of speed, efficiency, health, ease and moving with the times. Those who rely on cash, meanwhile, are increasingly made to feel stupid, old or out of touch.

[ Elderly GAA fans excluded by cashless policy, TD warns ]

But the real reason there’s such a move against money is – in fact – money. Cash operations account for between 5 and 10 per cent of bank operating costs – take away the real money and the banks’ bottom lines swell. An absence of cash means disappearing ATMs, fewer staff, fewer cash vans, cheaper insurance and less crime and the vanishing of physical banks from our towns, all of which help banks make more money while providing less service than at any time in their history.

Handling cash costs businesses money too – up to 2 per cent compared to contactless transactions which cost about 0.2 per cent. It is also a hassle as they have to pay people to handle it and work out what to do with the cash they take in and how to keep it safe.

Cash is not just important, it is essential for many hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland who will be further marginalised and excluded

But profit margins and hassles aside, we must keep reminding ourselves we need cash. In the UK, a 2019 report found that almost one in five people were at risk of being “left behind” in a cashless society with those on the lowest incomes most vulnerable.

It is the same in Ireland, where about one-third of social welfare recipients are paid in cash. Those on lower incomes often manage their finances using cash to give themselves more control.

[ Rise of contactless transactions continues, Central Bank finds ]

Not having to use cash can be convenient, for sure, but old money has its uses. It’s simple, doesn’t rely on technology and it’s private with no paper trail. This matters more to younger cohorts than they might reckon. Does anyone think the idea of a bank forensically poring over a loan application tutting at the amount of late-night contactless transactions from your local is a welcome development?

The European Central Bank has repeatedly stressed the importance of cash and identified its importance when it comes to financial inclusion. The ECB has noted that it is the only form of payment that doesn’t involve a third party and ensures consumers’ rights to privacy.

Echoing the ECB, the Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath, has been front and centre in support of cash as an option.

And that is all it is – an option. Standing in support of cash does not mean you have to use it. It just means you are showing solidarity with those might be lost without it.

Conor Pope is Consumer Affairs Correspondent