Make No Mistake -Cash Is Under Attack.

Posted on: 27/09/2015

Cash is under attack EVERYWHERE.

The attack is two-pronged. 

Leading the way are the vested interests, who benefit directly from alternative payment methods.

Largely funded by the public - retailers and service providers pay commissions on sales and/or fees - card schemes and the likes of ApplePay have almost unlimited budgets to push their payment methods. Their advertising largely focuses on vacuous people, with inane smiles, having their lives changed by a payment method.

Of course, no point-of-sale payment method changes anyones life. A few seconds, even if they can be saved, are insignificant in the context of the overall time we allocate to the retail experience. Traveling, parking and walking around shops making our selections, take up 99% of the time we spend  "High Street" ( or Mall) shopping. How we pay is irrelevant. 

Online shopping is a different matter. In that environment, having a secure and speedy payment method is of vital importance, especially if you don't want your identity stolen. However, online sales are still only 15% of total retail turnover in the UK, so it isn't changing too many lives just yet.

Can the vested interests be blamed for marketing their services? Of course not. Though it does grate more than a little that the retail prices we all pay are higher to feed their marketing budgets - and profits.

However, what makes many people really angry is when the vested interests work with Governments and Central Banks to manipulate the payment choices available to the public.

The manipulation takes many different forms.

Reducing ATM numbers, charging for access to cash, depriving the public of locations where cash can be withdrawn or deposited, subsidising retailers to accept alternative payment methods, banning the use of cash for payments above a certain value ( or at all). The list is as endless as the vested interests appetite for mega profits.

So the tactics used by the vested interests - working in tandem with their more secretive allies in Government and Central Banks - are many and varied.

When the tactics are successful, we - the public -are then told that cash use is declining "naturally". Natural? About as NATURAL as cosmetic ( Plastic?) surgery!

There can, of course, be a natural decline in the use of any product. However, cash has been around for 2700 years and has defied the logic of any "product lifecycle" model. So, on balance, "naturally" is unlikely and manipulated a near-certainty.

So when you hear organisations such UK Payments trumpeting " cash is now only used for 48% of payments in the UK", you are right to question their motives. 

AND THIS IS WHAT WE TRUMPET!

WHETHER CASH IS USED FOR 88%, 48% OR 8% OF UK PAYMENTS, IT MUST REMAIN A PAYMENT CHOICE FOR THE PUBLIC.

Losing the right to choose to use cash would be the biggest  unwanted change in all of our lives. We would see what little freedom and independence we still have disappear, leaving us as the brainwashed puppets the vested interests prefer.

USE CASH OR LOSE CASH. 

The choice is yours - at least while you still have one!

 




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