Why should we pay cash everywhere with banknotes instead of a card ?
Say I have a £50 banknote in my pocket & I’m going to a restaurant & paying for dinner with it.
The restaurant owner then uses the note to pay for the laundry.
The laundry owner then uses the note to pay the barber.
The barber will then use the note to pay for shopping.
After an unlimited number of payments, it will still remain a £50 value, which has fulfilled its purpose to everyone who used it for payment & the bank has jumped dry from every cash payment transaction made.
BUT…
IF I go to a restaurant & pay digitally via Card…
the bank fees for my payment transaction charged to the seller are 3%, so around £1.50…
(& so will be the fee of £1.50 for each further payment transaction )
for the owner re laundry or
payments of the owner of the laundry shop,
or payments of the barber etc…
Therefore, after 30 transactions, the initial £50 will exist at only £5, & the remaining £45 has become the property of the bank, thanks to all of the digital transactions & fees!!!
Use it or lose it folks…
Once it’s gone we won’t get it back!!!
The first thing I noticed was the 3% transaction fee - that restaurant owner should really shop around for a better card merchant deal - they’re paying way over the average! - even a small restaurant could probably get card merchant services at half that cost.
The other things missing, as Dachs pointed out, is all the cash handling costs involved in dealing only in cash.
The restaurant owner is not going to be paying all his takings to the local laundry - and hopefully the weekly takings will exceed their weekly spending!
Business Bank Accounts usually get charged for paying in Cash - and the Restaurant will probably need to keep getting change if all their customers are paying cash - the Bank charge them for Change too.
Then there will be extra staff costs for the extra time it takes to count, tally and prepare the cash for banking - plus extra security costs for transporting cash to bank if the business has a large turnover - and higher insurance costs if the business is keeping larger amounts of cash on the premises overnight.
Then take into account the loss of sales if customers arrive at your establishment expecting to be able to pay by card - and leaving without buying anything when they realise they need cash and don’t have any.
I help to manage a small retail shop and I do the financial accounts.
I have worked my way through the detailed costings of accepting cash only vs accepting cards - and even setting minimum amounts for card payments.
It is far more profitable overall to accept card payments - we still give customers the choice of paying by cash or card - but it’s better for us if they pay by card.
I have often suspected that was true, some companies were charging ridiculous excess for the use of a credit card until the Reserve Bank cracked down on the practice and ruled that a business could only charge actual cost (the majority don’t charge at all). I carry cash but rarely use it much preferring to use my debit card, within seconds, my phone beeps telling me about every transaction.
My local club now only accepts cards in the restaurant. Since Covid a girl comes to your table, takes your order on an iPad which is automagically relayed to the kitchen then you wave your credit/debit card over a wifi reader and the transaction is done. If you are in a group they are quite happy to charge each person/couple separately (which some restaurants still refuse to do - “No Split Bills”)
Debit and Credit Cards and most importantly, Loyalty Cards allow you no privacy at all, all analysed and ranked.
You can be tracked by anyone, and the tracking is not always good for you.
I lead a very boring life, Direct Debits for the essentials, Council Tax,
Gas and Electric.
Every thing I buy on Amazon and Ebay is by my registerd Credit Cards.
I tick all the boxes.
I also withdraw over £2000 a month in cash for my care costs and still keep off the grid.
I will pay with cash only if I can receive a discount, otherwise it’s a card payment and then usually my credit card that pays me back for using it. I always settle my CC monthly and therefore avoid any interest payments.
i went to lidll the other week then discovered you need a coin to take a trolly, i didnt have a coin, i couldnt believe i didnt have a coin, so i drove to ASDA and was horrified to find they also required a coin, so it was back to Morrisons… i now have several coins in the car…i copied the thread starter in light of that experience…
now when i go to India and use my debit card my bank charges me for using my card abroad, then also charges me for converting pounds into Rupees!!! it is a joint charge of over £5… so i now have a Caxton Card, and transfer cash from HSBC to the Caxton account, Caxton dosent chare for either ATM use nor converting to Rupees, just consider how often i use the ATM in six months?.. thats a lot of £5’s
Had you never used a trolley requiring a coin or something similar before?
Exchange rate fees have always been charged. Sure it takes some planning on how to reduce or even avoid them as you did with your Caxton card. Do you have the black or the red one? Since I hadn’t heard of them I looked it up but learnt that the rupee is not among the 15 currencies offered. Is there any explanation for that?
Hi Dachs, the supermarkets i use Morrisons and Tesosuperstore dont need coin for a trolly, i usually shop twice a week, but I sometimes step out of sequence …lol
i have the black caxton card and have no complaints… i have asked my I.T. person to check how i can load Rupees instead of pounds [Rupees is a closed currency perhaps this is why i cant load them… they do fluctuate, during summer when i am in the UK the rate might often be 105 to the pound, then in the winter it comes down to 90…bummer… tho my landlady smiles, i pay her Pounds and she sits on them till they go up to 105…lol
I also have several substitutes, among them a Czech crown coin, one that looks like a bagle, that I use istead of a real coin. More recent trolleys accept three different coins, not just the standard one.
I don’t know the UK laws but here it is illegal for a company to associate/retain your purchase with the credit and debit cards, hence the need for loyaltly cards. I don’t have any loyalty cards.
I think you are kidding yourself if you think you are off the grid. The meta data of your post on this forum is recorded.
