Going cashless leaves some behind
Society’s relentless push toward cashless commerce has hit a new gear thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. A growing preference for e-shopping and increasing concerns about handling contaminated paper money has taken almost all transactions digital. It is the culmination of what banks and credit card companies have been yearning for over the past decade.
But a cashless society clearly disadvantages the most vulnerable among us — people of color, people in poverty and the elderly. Convenience cannot overtake our desire to ensure an equitable and accessible economy for all.
Longtime proponents of transition to cashless commerce have cited numerous benefits: efficiency, safety and simplicity. And the majority of consumers have gradually gone along with the trend — only about a quarter of pre-COVID-19 transactions were made with cash. Now, retailers have added hygiene to the list of selling points — contactless payments have become the norm since the start of the pandemic and most stores will not accept cash to cut down on the risk of transmitting the virus.
Banks and credit card companies have been pushing for this change for years. The fees they collect on each digital transaction quickly add up, filling their pockets by skimming a little off the top from merchants. This system had been met by some resistance from frustrated sellers, but popular momentum was already pushing society toward cashless transactions and COVID-19 has largely sealed the deal.
Lost in the fray, however, are customers who do not have access to a credit or bank account, or simply prefer to pay with cash. A December 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that 34% of Black people, 17% of Hispanic people and 29% of people earning less than $30,000 still rely on cash for almost all of their purchases.
There are also concerns about privacy. Financial data is among the most sensitive information available. How a person spends his or her money can tell a company a great deal about them. If all the transactions occur digitally, the ability for a company to leverage user data for profit increases exponentially.
The push toward cashless transactions is sure to continue. The world was already trending toward cards and apps, and COVID-19 is sure to create many new converts. For most, convenience and safety will always trump the unwieldy nature of physical currency, even if it means tossing more sensitive data to companies.
But we must not overlook those who cannot or will not part with cash. Many still rely on bills and coins to take care of life’s necessities, and they should not be pushed aside or forgotten. People deserve more options, not fewer. Cashless transactions may become the preferred means of payment, but an accessible multimodal economy should not disappear altogether.