New research published today by Link, the UK’s cash access and ATM network, shows that almost half of people think the UK is heading towards a cashless society.
Five years on from the landmark Access to Cash Review, despite big changes in how we use cash, a similar number of people would still find a cashless society problematic.
Link asked a representative sample of 2,214 adults the same questions as were asked five years ago, and the results show both the big changes in how we use cash, and the major barriers to us going cashless.
Despite these massive changes, 71% of people still have some level of everyday reliance on cash and have used cash in the past two weeks.
Link data shows that UK consumers are still withdrawing £209 million a day from cash machines, however, this is £100m (33%) less than 2019.
Andrew Martin, CEO and founder of SMEB, a financial technology company dedicated to supporting small business, said: “There may well be a time when the world no longer needs cash — but that time is not now.
The string of IT outages in recent months make it clear that there is a long way to go until the technology and infrastructure behind digital payments is 100% reliable.
“In the meantime, cash continues to play an important everyday role in our society. Recently we have seen an uptick in people turning to cash as an effective way to budget.
“Unfortunately for businesses, getting your hands on it is not as easy as it used to be, especially for those operating in rural areas.
“Banking deserts up and down the country mean that many SMEs struggle to find somewhere to easily deposit their hard-earned cash at the end of the day.
“Action is urgently needed to address this issue and to improve access to banking services, no matter where you are.”
The article is available here.