Q: Are We 'Sleepwalking' Into A Cashless Society ? | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

There is a bit of 'crying wolf' in that article. I don't think cash will disappear but the fear seems to be that eventually some merchants/vendors won't handle cash any more. That is perfectly logical in some situations and has been the case for many services and certainly contractors. I think the fear is misplaced.

Norman1 said
Nonsense: We are not sleepwalking into a cashless society. We are walking into one, fully awake.

Why be so irrational paying with cash, when there is a ½% to 3% reward or rebate paying with a credit card or a prepaid card?

Kind of like bricks-and-mortar bank branches. Everyone would like them to be there. But, few actual set foot in one in months or years.  

Missing the point.

No issue if you want to be “awake” and pay without cash. The article deals with the concern that people who are just as awake won’t be able to pay with cash because a vendor won’t give them an option to do so.

While use of cash roughly halved this century, it is still substantial at 21.4% in 2022. Actually growing since 2020.

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/sdp2024-1.pdf

While you and I prefer to pay with credit cards, not everyone has access.

The other problem is that middle class families no longer deal with day to day payments in a manner which teaches kids the value of money as cc bills come off automagically and income keeps dripping into accounts . Money isn’t even discussed. That leads to bad spending habits when the kids grow up. In Friends Rachel is forced to tear up her cards. For a good reason.

Nothing like the actual $100 bill in the pocket, and having to decide which goodies to spend it on to educate a kid about the value of money.

96% of small and medium merchants accept cash, and all large retailers do, so the article might be exaggerating the scale of the threat https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/sdp2024-2.pdf

Jimmy said
Some of the businesses offer a
'cash discount' which greatly exceeds any 'rewards' from using a credit card. Recently I had to pick up some electrical supplies and the clerk specified 'cash ' for payment to avoid the merchant fee.  

NOT merchant fee but tax on income. WHY do you think all those roofers, plumbers, driveway sealers, etc. ask for cash? They just do NOT report that job as income and do not pay income tax.

We are definitely moving into a cashless society, the question is not if, but when.

Younger generation prefers not to carry the wallet. Everyone else is already familiar with credit/debit cards. Specific groups of holdouts will have to adapt.

The government could make stupid decision to force each merchant accept cash they want it or not, but this will only delay the inevitable.
Imagine the government forces telecoms to keep in 2024 all payphones they had in 1999 and keep them coin-operated only, will people start using them again?

I haven't been paying with cash since the start of pandemics, because I didn't need to.
I am not going to take hundreds of dollars cash with me to pay for groceries, that is inconvenient. Also, I don't want to get counterfeit bill or coin in change.
Same goes for any other store. Paying with credit/debit is faster and I don't need to check the change.

Nothing like the actual $100 bill in the pocket, and having to decide which goodies to spend it on to educate a kid about the value of money

Sure, but it is even better to give kid $1 or $25 banknote, that'll teach them how the government can invalidate paper money any time it wants to.
$100 bill can do teaching, too: not every merchant accepts it, and where they do you might need to wait till they get manager to approve.

For most of families, outside of few very specific groups, it would actually be better to find FI that offers debit card for kids, to teach kids value of money in the modern world. Like this from RBC: RBC Leo's Young Savers Account

I want my pennies back.

Lodown said

There is no reward. Using your credit card only gives you back some of the price increase the merchant has tacked on to the cost of their products caused by the advent of credit cards. Anyone who uses cash is overpaying.  

compare to paying in cash, it is a reward.

And for those small restaurants / contractors and the like that offer 5% of 10% off when pay in cash, there is only 1 reason why they are doing it....

RetirEd said
I want my pennies back.  

That reminded me of another reason for going cashless. As an example, right now at Wal-Mart near me Natrel Fine-filtered 2% Milk, 1 L goes for $3.58.

I pay with credit/debit card, they charge me $3.58.
You pay with cash, they charge you $3.60 (rounded up).

MarkFog said
I recall a Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy movie (Trading Places) where Dan Aykroyd's finances were frozen and he could not withdraw anything from cc to banks accounts all in a span of a day.

No need for fictionalized accounts. Some donors to the Freedom convoys found their bank accounts frozen, too.

Bill said
If power's out and everything's down I think no-one will take your cash anyway, they can't record the sale or open the cash register to make change if systems down, everybody probably would just close their doors if it happens now.

Not necessarily. Cash registers have a backup manual release. (At least, they used to have one.)

Bill said
If power's out and everything's down I think no-one will take your cash anyway,

Right, and if I had gas to sell you during a power outage I am going to give you credit right?

Society could barter with others. There are communities in Greece that opted to use their own currency at a local level to get away from using the euro.