I am seeing the war on cash in realtime. In the area of West London I am writing this in the banks are disappearing from the High Street. Halifax shut its doors a few months ago - along with its cashpoint. Barclays has gone along with Lloyds where I held my busines account. Sainsburys has two cashpoints but they are not attached to anyone you can talk to; if one's card gets swallowed - as mine did one Bank Holiday - there is noone 'inside' one can go to. And at the Sainsburys self-service tills, only two out of ten can take cash. WHsmiths is holding out with one cashpoint outside.
Further down there is a Pret (Pret a manger) which is cashless. Next door to it an Orée cafe and patisserie - also cashless. Paying by card or increasingly phone/app is 'convenient' goes the mantra. Until the interwebs go down as did with the High Street a few months back as some roadworks managed to cut through the cables. Pret, Orée and even Smiths shut up shop.
There is an insidious side to this 'nudge culture' as laid out by Brett Scott here and as we Smartsizers have been saying for years: Cash represents freedom, flexibilty and resilience.
We will return to this theme increasingly I fear...as people stroll docilely into digital entrapment
I am seeing the war on cash in realtime. In the area of West London I am writing this in the banks are disappearing from the High Street. Halifax shut its doors a few months ago - along with its cashpoint. Barclays has gone along with Lloyds where I held my busines account. Sainsburys has two cashpoints but they are not attached to anyone you can talk to; if one's card gets swallowed - as mine did one Bank Holiday - there is noone 'inside' one can go to. And at the Sainsburys self-service tills, only two out of ten can take cash. WHsmiths is holding out with one cashpoint outside.