Associated Press:
“I had money and I couldn’t pay,” he said.
There is no federal law that requires stores to accept cash, so lawmakers are working on the issue at the state and city level.
Earlier this year, Philadelphia became the first city to ban cashless stores, despite efforts by Amazon to dissuade it. New Jersey passed a statewide ban soon after, and a similar ban is working its way through the New York City Council. Before this year there was only one jurisdiction that required businesses to accept cash: Massachusetts, which passed a law nearly 40 years ago.
I get why retailers, especially smaller ones, would like to go cashless but it certainly does and will hit those on the lower economic rungs much harder.
I saw this in person in a Shake Shack here in California a week ago. Some teenager wanted to buy some food but couldn’t. They ended up partnering with someone who had a card.
As someone for whom credit is easy, cash feels outdated to me. Arguably, the correct thing here should be to improve access to banking for those who are underprivileged, but until we can get to that we should be very careful about going cash-free.
I wonder what happens in China, where WeChat is the dominant player and cash is totally antiquated? Is the dynamic that WeChat credit is easy, phones are cheap, and so credit is universally accessible to everyone? I doubt we can adopt such a model due to banking laws here, but it might be worth thinking about as well.
I am concerned about this.
What happens when the Hermès store goes cashless?
How will I launder cash?
You kind of hit the nail on the head with your example. WeChat Pay is about sending money to people, merchants, drivers, etc. When I’m in China I don’t have WeChat Pay so a friend usually pays then I transfer them money. It’s really common.
It’s not about payment, it’s about sending money which can be used for payment.
America need to embrace both contactless payments and cash cards. The banks have resisted both because it costs them money – now there still isn’t enough infrastructure for either.
In Canada, Australia, England, Korea, etc most small payments are cash done with bank card and tap payment. It’s easy for people to get, you still pay cash, and you get the benefits of cashless transactions. In the US the majority of purchases under $10 are still done with cash. My son got a bank card so he could pay cash with contactless payments when he was in high school. He’s 26 now.
Cashless breeds fascism
This is a form of redlining. I don’t need to use cash for most in-person transactions, but I sure as hell like having that choice available.