Ditch the card. Pay cash, page-37

Hi Cash Lovers,

Last Friday's CrowdStrike outage impacted banks, supermarkets and payment system throughout the world and is still not completely resolved.

Last November's Optus outage in Australia took out payment systems for almost a whole business day. Plenty of local businesses and consumers were stuck without the ability to make a transaction, this was particularly true in regional towns and communities.

No wonder the number and value of ATM cash withdrawals is trending up in 2024. More and more Australians are realising that carrying cash is essential 'just in case' there is an outage or a need to make a transaction in private.

The value of monthly ATM cash withdrawals is up 4.5 per cent in the year to May 2024, reports the RBA. The number of ATM cash withdrawals is up 2.1 per cent in the year to May 2024.

There is no decline in the number or value of ATM cash withdrawals, despite fewer ATMs.

Increasing number of outages and privacy concerns are fueling a trend towards people carrying physical cash ‘just in case.’

The Optus outage in November 2023 and the CrowdStrike outage of July 2024, plus many other smaller system problems have dented community confidence in the reliability of cashless payment systems.

The EcoCash outage in Zimbabwe 2019 killed that nation’s cashless experiment.

The governor of the Reserve Bank advises her own children to never leave the house without cash.

"I had no sympathy for my son when his card didn't work and he had no cash on him at the petrol station," Michelle Bullock told the AusPayNet Summit in December.

"The RBA places a high priority on the community continuing to have reasonable access to cash," said Bullock, "industry, regulators and government will need to continue to work together to put in place sustainable arrangements for cash distribution.

"We are keen to see the industry maintaining a broad coverage of ATMs at reasonable prices, particularly in regional and remote areas," said Bullock.

The cash-in-transit (CIT) industry has been structurally unsustainable for many years. Commonwealth Bank's Matt Comyn has admitted the banks have been underpaying for CIT for a long time:

"What we did was (we and others) accepted very attractive commercial terms. Perhaps we should have had the foresight to think well, that actually looks like it’s an unsustainable pricing and commercial model."

Going forward, banks, retailers and Australia Post can underpin a vibrant, competitive CIT sector by:

1) Large retailers must commit to supporting cash acceptance and availability with fewer restrictions on EFTPOS cash-out.

2) Large banks and Australia Post must support (and pay for) widespread access to cash in every community.