There’s one obvious solution to that. I’m doing my bit …
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Me too! I’ve written to the Treasurer asking to be sent some cash for Armaguard to bring to me! 
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All jokes aside, it is a worry. over the past 25 years, my local shopping centre has gone from one bank and four ATMs, to one ATM. And the queue at that one solitary ATM seems to get shorter and shorter by the week. Actually, I don’t recall seeing a queue of even two people for at least a year!
I use the second last of the bank ATM’s in the next town - as needed. It can be a lonely experience. What I have noticed more often are the private branded ATM’s appearing in servos, and venues. The penultimate iteration?
Too bad. This is apparently what ‘we’ and especially ‘the banks’ want.
No cash in the pocket? A cash-less shop? Have only one financial service provider that is down? Too bad, the answer is self evident - excepting for seniors needing an additional credit card as well as anyone not having sufficient photo ID and cannot reasonably get any.
Virtually anything can be ‘fixed’ sufficiently well to make it a non-show stopping problem with enough political will, but more importantly intelligence in addressing it. It is hard to know which is more difficult these days.
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That would be fairly common, except for the centres that once had two or three banks.
On the other hand during that period IIRC the major supermarkets started giving cash out on your card. Unless they stop taking cash that service is likely to continue.
The RBA has some interesting analysis on the changes to payment types over the past 15 or so years:
What I find surprising is that while cash transactions have declined substantially, the amount of currency (cold hard cash) in circulation is at record levels. One does wonder where the cash is hiding.
The RBA explains it. Because fewer old notes are being returned to be replaced. And notes are just sitting in people’s purses or wallets not being used unless some payment outage means cash has to be used.
And the notes I have had sitting in my wallet folded in half ever since the Covid hit are no longer usable for use in cash dispensing machines and would have to be replaced if used.
The prospects of Australians having to pay to use cash.
Two interpretations of what the RBA Governor has had to say. One reality is the cost of transporting cash around the country is no longer profitable with Linfox-Armaguard looking to loose $190M over the coming 3 years.
A second reality is a prospect of special arrangements supported collectively by the Australian Banking sector may be needed to ensure access to ATMs for cash in regional and remote areas.
The long version from the RBA.
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A cynic might interpret that as justification to ban card surcharges because card use saves them money! But back to the norm, when ‘they’ want to add costs they will always justify it one way or another.
Since ‘it’ has a cost it should be part of their business ledger, tax deductible and rolled into the price so it is obvious to anyone what the true cost is.
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Logically, the marked price is for the payment method that has the lowest surcharge and then the actual surcharges for all other payment methods are set to the difference between that payment method’s surcharge and the lowest surcharge.
So, as long as the fee that the merchant is hit with for accepting a card payment is higher than the fee for transporting cash, … the cost of transporting cash will be in the price (part of doing business).
The cynic might suggest that if the cash surcharge starts to rise then the card surcharges would rise by the same amount. (NB: this probably would not be legal - unless the card transaction processors can justify that their costs have risen.)
If cash ever gets to be more expensive than card then perhaps crypto will come into its own and be more widely accepted (for in person transactions).
This whole issue mystifies me.
You can do a transaction using physical money, in which case both sides have a problem. The payer has to work out how to replenish cash stocks, and the payee has to work out how to get cash into accounts used in normal operations.
If it is just virtual money transferred from payer to payee, using a card or some other method, then both the above problems are removed.
The march of technology will pretty much render cash transactions dead, and given that card transactions have been around for a very long time, well established almost universally, I see little in any of the arguments for cash to be kept.
As for Crypto for use in ordinary transactions, that boat sailed off and foundered long ago.
You didn’t notice any complaints over the last few years whenever a bank system of phone system went down? Whether you think that having a cash reserve just in case of tech failure is a good argument for cash there are many who do.
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Sure I did. But that is totally the fault of businesses failing to have resilience in transaction processing.
There is no fundamental reason why point of sale card processing cannot proceed without a network. In fact that is the way they used to work in places like supermarkets when the online systems went offline every night for batch processing.
Credit card processing in the early days needed no network or terminal equipment at all.
Stored value cards have been around for decades. And not that long ago many people paid for things using cheques.
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Whether that might be a solution or not is irrelevant to the person stuck at the checkout with this weeks groceries they cannot pay for unless it exists. In the meantime people want plan b.
They can. The console holds the data until a connection is re-establshed. But, banks limits the maximum transaction value when network connection is unavailable. This should be okay for many businesses. Unfortunately it is too low for ours.
Something I didn’t ask is what happens if this transaction is declined say due to insufficient funds or reaching credit limit. The customer would be long gone.
Alternatively, there is MOTO option as well. This is the option we can use.
The issue of security keeps getting more complex. While many knew this is a possibility I doubt many knew how widespread the attack is becoming as quickly as it has. When it happens to ‘you’ and you do not have more cards does one expect an instant solution, grab for cash if physically possible, or most likely do without, situation dependent, while it gets sorted?
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I found out what happens if I used my debit card once the balance had gone below zero. My bank honoured the transactions. Gave an instant overdraw facility. But did charge me a small fee.
Same with credit card. I had a few hundred dollars owing to be paid next statement. Car rental put a big holding precharge on the card taking it over the credit limit. No problems making further charges.
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It depends on how much the business is prepared to compromise on integrity of the system. As you say, a thousand years ago, all CC transactions were paper and offline - but that means the checks that we have come to expect today were not available.
And it is totally fine for you not to use it. I would not argue that your choice of payment method should be limited, only that mine should not be limited.
My own objection is mostly to the surveillance aspect. If you transact by card, parties are selling your data without your consent, and no doubt governments are surveilling the data, again without your consent.
Another objection, as long as cash is cheaper in overheads than card, is that it is inherently wasteful of money. From an original $100, each transaction causes it to lose a small percentage of its value as it circulates electronically, with the bank skimming off its cut at each step, until there is nothing left. If cash genuinely circulates via person-to-person transactions then an original $100 remains perpetually $100.
(Credit card remains expensive because fraud is so rife. The more that the cost is worn by the banking system, the higher the overhead cost of a credit card, the worse it is if you are forced to use a credit card.)
Another objection is that, without cash, ultimately you are forced to use a bank - and be subject to their rules, despite Bank Bashing being a national sport. Who would willingly force themselves into the arms of the banks?
That’s a slightly circular argument - because if normal operations involve cash then the cash can immediately be used in normal operations. The problem, as you imply, is that cash is declining in its role in “normal operations”.
History is replete with examples of things that are devised for one purpose, never really take off, and then suddenly get a second wind when conditions change. Perhaps the time is ripe for crypto!
But of course there were checks to be done. The credit card issuer had to provide the card accepting merchant with a confirmation number. This was usually via a phone call. Time consuming at times, but much faster once CCs went online.
If you are not using cash, you are forced to use a bank? Well where do you get your cash from in the first place? Are you printing your own money?
The RBA controls the generation of cash, and banks buy it to be distributed into the economy. You, as an end user, can buy cash from the banking system.
