But there remain groups vulnerable to the decline or end of cash, say both Vasantkumar and Worthington. “It can even be destabilising.” This, he says, is what happened in Zimbabwe, which shifted quickly to cashlessness without the support of most of the population, “and confidence in money collapsed as a result”.Īustralia has a relatively low unbanked population. “Taking cash away completely gets a little tricky,” says the Macquarie University economic anthropologist. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best readsĬash, for some people, inspires a sense of comfort, according to Dr Chris Vasantkumar. “There’s less and less cash in circulation as a payment mechanism but there’s more and more cash that’s being held as a store of wealth.” “Cash is still very popular as a store of wealth,” says Steve Worthington, a professor of financial services from Swinburne University of Technology. That is $3,700 in banknotes for every person, stored under our metaphorical mattresses. In his December speech the Reserve Bank of Australia governor, Philip Lowe, reported that there are about 18 $100 notes and 38 $50 notes in the economy for each Australian. While we are decreasingly withdrawing or using it, Australia is awash with cash. But, in that cashless world, who might lose out? And how might it change our relationship with money? A store of wealthįirst, however, an irony. Where post-purchase payment plans mean we can buy before we even have the funds to pay for them, and where the prospect of an entirely cashless society does not seem absurd. While the decline of cash is a tale as old as credit cards, we have reached a point where, for many of us, weeks can pass without touching money. We wave a card or a phone and that which we desire is bought. Even one of the last bastions of cash, pocket money, is on the march towards apps and cards. ATMs have hauled out of walls and wheeled out of shopping centres en masse. Thousands of bank branches have been shut. We rarely use it and increasingly we cannot access it. Across the country just one in 20 point-of-sale transactions now involves cash. This month Australia’s treasurer, Jim Chalmers, announced a death sentence for cheques but it is not the only way of paying for things which is in a state of atrophy.
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