Powerful reason to still carry cash
THE Far North’s tropical cyclone season could be our secret weapon in the stand against becoming a cashless society.
National banks closing branches and ripping out ATMs across Australia has sparked concerns that cash could be on the way out.
Extra caution to prevent the COVID risk of exchanging banknotes has fuelled the rise in contactless payments.
Figures from the Australian Payments Network revealed that more than 2100 ATMs across the country had been removed in the June quarter, and 175 bank branches had closed over the past year.
Cairns Bank general manager Peter Phillips said the reality was that cash simply was not being used as much.
“It’s a trend that had been going for a while and COVID accelerated it,” he said.
“Cards can be more convenient. I think that’s one of the reasons behind it, we live in a society of convenience.”
However, Mr Phillips said a move away from cash would be especially difficult in the Far North due to the issues caused by power loss.
“When you live in a cyclone zone, if you rely entirely on
Eftpos and digital transactions, you’re stuffed when the power goes out,” he said.
“In cyclone season, people cash up more because it’s easier if they need to buy things.
“The people who are more familiar with using cash and cheques are going to feel it the most, that’s the hard part of it, particularly for the older demographics.
“There’s a number of retailers in town who still accept only cash, such as the food outlets and market stalls in the Night Markets and Rusty’s.”
Mr Phillips said he had noticed a reduction in the number of ATMs as well as the use of cash in general, but added it would take a long time, if ever, before Australia could feasibly go cashless.
“The brutal reality is with card transactions, there is data on you and your spending behaviour,” he said.
“I did a Google search looking for masks recently and since then every ad I see has been related to that — the same thing happens with cards, it makes your spending behaviour more easily researched.
“I think there is a need for cash — not because you’re doing something sinister but because you don’t want Big Brother looking at your spending habitats.”
Senior financial advisor Peter Horsfield, of SMARTadvice on Grafton St, said cash would always have a place, but it had less value as a budgeting tool these days due to transaction limits and inflation.
“Cash doesn’t earn any interest or income. It just sits there,” he said.
“If you hold lots of cash and leave it under the mattress, your purchasing power will be less because of inflation.
“It works well for shortterm liquidity or day-to-day needs.”