The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Communities fight back against the war on cash
The pandemic has weakened Britain’s immunity against the forces killing off cash. But communities across the country are coming up with their own antibody to fight off the decline in the use of physical money.
Communities such as the small village of Llandegfan on Anglesey have taken it upon themselves to install their own free-to-use cash machines.
Local shopkeeper Fionn Verburg, 56, said putting a free- to- use cash point in the village store just before Christmas had provided a muchneeded financial lifeline, especially for the more elderly residents of the area.
“They were having to travel on the bus to a Waitrose in town miles away to get their money,” she said.
“Older villagers have been relying on a mobile post office that comes in every now and then after our local one closed down permanently two years ago.”
She added: “We also have a service that allows people to pay their council tax and utility bills all here in the shop in cash, so they do not have to resort to online transfers that many are not confident with.”
Some 60,000 people were unable to access cash without travelling more than three miles last year after the pandemic forced places such as post offices, pubs and shops to close, according to figures from the Financial Conduct Authority, the regulator.
Almost one in 10 cash machines shut down as a result, while more than 10pc of bank branches temporarily closed their doors over contagion fears. Many more have been shuttered permanently, as part of a wider decline.
Most of this has taken place in rural areas, where cash dependence tends to be higher. The number of free-to-use machines has fallen by a fifth in two years, while the number of cash points that charge is up 6pc.
Nick Quin of Link, which runs Britain’s cash machines, is in charge of a small team that considers requests for locations of new ATMs and sends out scouts to cash- deprived parts of the British Isles. “One of the trends we are seeing is cash disappearing in rural and low-income areas, where people need it most,” he said.
“In more affluent areas in cities and towns, where most people prefer to use cards and now even some shops only accept contactless payments, access levels stay the same or are growing.”
Sue Holden, 73, successfully campaigned with her local community association for a free-to-use cash point to be installed in the local Spar shop in Barton, outside Oxford, after cashpoint charges started taking huge bites out of the incomes of the residents.
“Lots of people here are on very low incomes and some depend on benefits, or are elderly and living off small pensions,” she said.
“We coach them on how to budget and advise them to make small daily cash withdrawals to control and limit their spending.
“But people were losing £30 a month or so in fees once the closest machine started charging for withdrawals. It is a massive amount of money for groups like ours.”
Last week, soldiers of the 39 Engineer Regiment saved their cash machine in Kinloss barracks from closing down and moved it to the gatehouse so local civilians of the isolated village on the Moray Firth could start using it for the first time.
Soldiers and their families will continue to have access to bank notes to be used in the cash- only canteen and bar on the Army base, which serves some 800 servicemen and women, 300 of whom have families on site, and 100 civilians who work there.
Villagers will also benefit and will be able to draw out cash to use in places such as the local Chinese takeaway, which does not accept card payment.
Although the chronic decline in cash use has sped up during the crisis, more than two million people still depend on coins and banknotes every day.