this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024

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Australian businesses selling essential goods and services to be forced to accept cash payments (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 month ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/australia@aussie.zone

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Treasury confirms cheques will stay in circulation until 2029 but then cease to be accepted as legal tender

top 16 comments

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[–] PeelerSheila@aussie.zone 9 points 1 month ago

Consumers have a right to options. Our internet/pos has been a bit temperamental these last couple of weeks (they're still trying to figure out why) but thankfully we take cash so the cogs keep turning, we keep selling product and making orders and we all still get paid.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 8 points 1 month ago

Cash 😍😍

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I thought this was already covered by cash just being legal tender.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There are a few retailers these days who don't deal with cash. It's just as weird to me as the retailers who only deal with cash.

[–] RarePossum@programming.dev 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Personally it makes more sense to me to not deal with cash. Most people prefer card now and it makes you a lower target to be robbed if there's no cash

[–] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago

Plus banks are a pain to get to and do deposits. Cash is risky and costly to deal with. CC charges a fee, so maybe those costs are less visible as it’s skimmed right off the top, but many retailers just pass that on,

[–] MuffinHeeler@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago

You can't pay our council rates or water bills with cash. Come to think of it, I don't think you can pay electricity with cash either.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Has anyone actually written out a cheque in their personal banking chequebook this century? I only did it occasionally in ye olden days, and mostly to post payments to utilities and pay rent etc. I don't think I ever stood in a store and wrote out a cheque. Hardly any would accept them without a prior arrangement.

I've used bank cheques this century, but not lately. Who's out there writing cheques?

[–] trk@aussie.zone 4 points 1 month ago

We got a cheque book with our business banking account the better part of a decade ago now, and we've used 1.

When I was a checkout chump a million years ago people still occasionally brought in cheques and it meant taking copies of ID and all sorts because the dishonour ratio was too damn high.

[+] trk@aussie.zone -6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Cash is so gross though. All those grubby mitts all over it, plus being stored in super icky places like bras and grunderpants. Big fan of cashless if for no other reason than keeping bits of other people off me.

Actual other reasons:

More secure to use a locked device for payment than carry cash that becomes anonymous once its removed from your person
You cant lose digital money down the back of the couch, or drop it when getting your wallet out or whatever
Easier for businesses to keep a track and balance sales automatically when its all digital
Safer for staff rather than handling wads of cash, especially in places like service stations
Harder for dodgy folk to do dodgy deals with

[–] guillem@aussie.zone 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't disagree with cashless being the preferred method, but cash should always be an option because e.g. in case of disaster, the infrastructure that cashless depends on can be impaired for a while.

[–] trk@aussie.zone -5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As proved by various outages, when electricity (or the internet, or the service provider, etc) is down and prevents digital transfers being made... cash doesnt work either, cause it's all the same POS / accounting software that handles cash which is also down.

Also if a natural disaster takes out internet access for an extended period, wheres the cash a business needs to keep on hand going to suddenly appear from? I haven't worked in retail in a decade or more, but we always kept as little cash as possible on hand due to the constant threat of robbery. Even back then cash was way less than 50% of transactions, I'd be surprised if it was even in the double digit percentages anymore.

[–] guillem@aussie.zone 7 points 1 month ago

If you have pen and paper and the key to the drawer you don't need a working POS on the spot to accept cash while comms are out and record the transactions later.

And exactly: where does the cash appear from? That's the "should always be an option" part.

Of course there's drawbacks for everything: less secure for staff if you accept cash vs inability to do anything when comms fail if you don't.

There might be a further point, although I haven't looked into the reasons: Sweden started the cashless experiment before and they are backpedaling now.

[–] Seagoon_@aussie.zone 5 points 1 month ago

and when the electricity is down you can shop at all

[–] Railison@aussie.zone 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Agree with the bit about it being easier to keep track of payments with electronic payment.

Cash does have a cost, though it’s less visible.

[–] trk@aussie.zone -2 points 1 month ago

Cash does have a cost

It's a pain in the butthole tbh.

From a checkout chump perspective it was probably 40 minutes of my day wasted dealing with the cash. Getting it dispensed, double counting it all, depositing in to the safe when you had too much, watching out for dodgy currency or those dickheads who try the quick "I give you a 5 and you round up the change to 10 and then I'll swap that for a 20 and then give you 30 so I get a 50" scam, dealing with damaged or defaced currency, recounting at end of day, getting reamed for being too far up or too far down in the count, having to sign forms to swear to god you hadn't knocked off a pineapple (or put too many pineapples in the drawer)...

Then you need a safe storage space for the cash, security to protect the cash, literally a whole industry built on transporting it around the place, keep enough cash on hand to provide change, keep enough to cover EFT withdrawals.

There's a lot of cost to handling cash. Also its gross. Did I mention its gross yet? Getting warm notes that were slightly sticky was disgusting.