One tap or two... coffee shop ditches cash for card
ACOFFEE shop in Birmingham city centre has become the first in the city to ditch cash. Urban Coffee will no longer accept notes or coins from November 1.
The shop, in Church Street, is believed to be the first retail outlet in the city to make the move.
Customers will only be able to pay by card, smartphone or smart watches. The owners of the chain said accepting cash was more trouble than it was worth.
Urban Coffee is following in the footsteps of other coffee shops across the UK in giving notes and coins the cold shoulder.
Some self-service tills in small branches of supermarkets in Birmingham are card only, but no store has yet totally ditched money.
Last year, it was revealed that debit cards had overtaken cash as the most popular form of payment in the UK.
A sign in the window of Urban Coffee tells customers of the changes. There will be a minimum spend of £1 but nothing in the shop costs less than that.
Simon Jenner, co-founder of Urban, which also has a branch in the Jewellery Quarter, said it was something they had been planning for a while.
“We’ve been trialling it at weekends throughout this year and customers seemed happy with it,” he said. “The reality for us is that nobody wants to deal with cash anymore.
“The banks charge us more for handling cash than they do electronic transactions.
“Then there are the safety aspects. We have to store cash and then staff have to take it to the bank with all the security risks that involves.
“Now between 60 and 70 per cent of our customers pay by means other than cash.
“We don’t think going cashless will be a major drama.”
Birmingham already leads the way in shunning notes and coins.
A survey by a payment service earlier this year found it was number two in the top ten cites for card transactions, behind only London.
The study, which analysed more than 300 million transactions during 2017, found 80 per cent of Britons said card transactions, including contactless, were their favourite form of payment.
However, 46 per cent said they were worried about the security of card transactions.
The research also found cashless transactions were more popular among younger spenders.
In the poll, 41 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 said it was their favourite form of payment, compared to just under ten per cent of over-55s.