'Sleepwalking' into a cashless society could leave millions behind

An immediate transition to a cashless society in the UK could leave behind over 8m people as some consumers lack the ability to pay for goods digitally said the latest report from Access to Cash.

The use of cash in the UK is in decline and a straight-line trajectory of current trends would see the use of cash end by 2026, but according to the report, Britain is not ready to go cashless just yet.

According to the advocacy group, around 17% of the UK population (over 8 million adults) would struggle to cope without cash as digital options don’t work for them yet.

And those most severely affected would be the poorest in the country and not the elderly as was often wrongly assumed.

Indeed, a wide range of needs for cash remained, even if some of those were likely to reduce over time, like the 37% of Britons who need cash because their local shops don’t accept digital payments yet.

As well, other needs will require specific solutions, including physical or mental health issues which make it hard to use digital services (2%), the risk of overspending and going into debt (9%) and those who rely on others to buy things for them (4%).

Furthermore, declining rates of access to ATMs, while increasingly a problem, were just the tip of the iceberg. There is no doubt that the UK is starting to see a decline in the number of ATMs, the study said, with people now sometimes no longer able to access cash and that was just the most obvious symptom.

Then there were the roughly £5.0bn in annual costs of running the UK’s cash infrastructure to contend with, paid for predominantly by banks and consumers.

“Some of these companies may consider exiting the market as its profitability declines – leading to the risk of disorderly collapse [...] Without an effective wholesale cash infrastructure, ATMs won’t get filled, cash deposits won’t get counted, and we won’t trust the value of money."