Now, I strongly dislike this policy, and would normally give a swerve to any pubs applying it, but I took the view on this occasion that it would be interesting to see what it was like, and I didn’t really want to cut off my nose to spite my face. It’s a pub of some character, with a small historic façade on the High Street leading to a rambling interior on several different levels. They also brew their own beer, although the pint of £4.75 homebrew I sampled probably wouldn’t win any prizes. I’m also not going to be so dogmatic as to take the same view over, for example, must-visit tourist attractions.
I’m not aware of any pubs in my local area that I would routinely want to visit that won’t accept cash. But even if there were, there are plenty of others that I could give my business to, so I wouldn’t experience any hardship by avoiding them. Back in 2020, during the darkest depths of lockdown, I wrote about the importance of preserving the right to pay in cash.
Ultimately, the continued existence of cash represents a bulwark of freedom against both governments and corporations. Yes, many people may find contactless payments for everyday transactions convenient, but if we as a society allow cash to entirely disappear, we will have also said goodbye to a large measure of our liberties.This is a theme amplified in this recent article entitled A true cashless society would be a dystopian nightmare.
If paying for everyday purchases by card is more convenient for you, that’s fair enough, although personally I find it makes life more difficult. But if you venture out of the house without any cash at all, then you leave yourself very exposed, as one participant on a pub crawl recently found when he encountered a cash-only (not Sam Smith’s) pub.
A few places say they have gone cashless after experiencing burglaries, but if there are other cash businesses nearby it doesn’t entirely ring true. For most venues, not accepting cash is exercising a form of social selection. You’re saying that you don’t want the business of the old, the poor or the non-conformist. Your target market is all the people who enthusiastically support the latest thing.
Incidentally, on two previous visits to Exeter, the best pub I encountered was the Great Western Hotel next to St David’s Station, but sadly this closed down earlier this year and it future looks uncertain. It’s an interesting and characterful city, but not really the best for pubs. I think people are spoiled by York! I also happened to visit during Freshers’ week, when many of the pubs and restaurants were thronged with students.
I share your dislike of cashless businesses, I view this as short sighted, not only do they risk alienating some customers, they also expose themselves to the risk of technical failure. Ultimately it's the banks that win, raking in extra income for processing each transaction.
ReplyDeleteI do a lot of reviews on Google maps, and automatically deduct a star if a business is card only.
I've had a win, when one popular Oxfordshire pub, saw the light and reversed their cash only policy (not all down to me, though!).
Any benefit businesses gain from not accepting cash are outweighed by the need to offer a range of payment options .
Banks charge businesses far more to process cash than they do for card transactions. Banking quantities of cash is expensive and increasinlgy difficult as the number of bank branches closing means you may have to travel a fair distance to do so.
DeleteTechnical failure: yes, the cashless society is predicated on a reliable supply of electricity, something that is not a given in country areas. A one minute power cut last week destroyed local shops ability to process cards so they had to revert to cash.
DeleteI'm old enough to be living on a pension, and I've got no attachment to cash at all. Apart from supermarket trolleys and the entry fee at my local pub quiz - both of which require keeping a stock of £1 coins - I can count the times I've needed cash since the pandemic on the fingers of one hand. It's true that cash makes it easier to leave tips or give to beggars, but I think those are the only things that article got right.
ReplyDeleteIf it suits you, fair enough. But don't try to impose it on everyone else.
DeleteI wouldn't dream of it, and in fact have no possible way of doing so.
DeleteWhy would you choose to pay with an archaic and more difficult form of exchange when an instantaneous labour-free option is available ? Contactless card is human progress at its best and continuing to use archaic cash is just hardheaded stubbornness. You will simply be left behind by human progress like many others , articles like this are going to look almost comical to the next generation.
ReplyDeleteYou mention comical to the next generation, what about the current generation? I'm 50 years of age, I see the value of keeping cash, when your Central Bank digital currency, won't allow you to buy a pint as you've exceed your monthly allowance for alcohol you may think differently.
DeleteBut think of the numismatists please.
DeleteThis is an error people make about central bank digital currency. it's not different from the retail bank money we have now. It's not crypto. The transactions are verified by a central authority. It's basically a nationalised monopoly or retail banking. Crypto is decentralised with the verifiable authority being maths and not a central authority. Programmable money is where your token to a ledger record contains a programmable function. That function can restrict your use of the token. When programmable money comes in, which may or may not be a feature of your central bank token, that's when your money tells the till its not allowed to be spent on cans or fags or chips.
DeleteIf you'd crossed over the river from Exeter St David's station you'd have come across The Thatched House - Exeter & East Devon CAMRA branch pub of the year.
ReplyDeleteI spotted that, but it's a bit out of the way. I did, however, visit the Bridge Inn at Topsham.
DeleteI don't think the end of cash is quite the consumer choice it is made out to be. Retail banks are pushing cashless on small business and consumers as they want to see the end of tokens that cost them to process. A cashless world is no branches, few employees, little costs and all income from transaction charges. More in, less out, better business.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a government conspiracy, as some claim, but an oligopoly of retail banking leading the market to where many do not wish to go.
As an example, I've become quite fond of Burnhams £2 bus fares. Coupled with a smart phone that tells you bus routes from A to B, Buses have gone from dreadful things to quite useable, imv. They all have signs up saying no change given. What you gonna do? Give them a tenner? You tap your card. When it doesn't work he lets you on for nowt. Had a couple of free rides this month. So we are all lead to tapping card by a system designed to make it convenient for the others not ourselves.
If you want a conspiracy theory, though, it's not in cashless retail banking, decentralised crypto or central bank digital currency. It's programmable money. A token for a ledger record that contains a function alongside a record. That's where money can have an expiry or a restricted use.
That is the concern - that it is used to monitor and control people's spending. Of course all the Pollyannas bleat "the innocent have nothing to fear".
DeleteThis is where conspiracy theorists need some system knowledge. What are you validating? It’s a transaction amount, not a transaction detail. So, your retail bank or CBDC only know the amount to validate. The store may know both you and your transaction contents via your loyalty card. You cannot implement an alcohol rationing system without sending more transaction details to the validating authority vastly increasing the amount of data. The Coop cannot prevent you from going to Tesco once you’ve had your allowance of Coop booze. A national electronic smart card “ration book” would require a massive government IT project and retailer software changes for an additional ration card separate from money validation or store specific loyalty cards.
DeleteThe only way, realistically, you can do this is programme the money. All money is a ledger record (even a token system of seashells or pieces of metal and paper are an open ledger, just one not written down anywhere you can read), Central or decentralised electronic money has a secure secret number to pay people and open numbers to receive. If you place a function alongside the ledger record that can form part of the transaction validation, then the money can become a restricted token with rules.
If cash is entirely eliminated it frees banks to set negative interest rates since you will no longer have the option of keeping your savings in a suitcase under the bed
DeleteThe pub on the estate not far from us is cash only these days, which means I never go in as it'd mean a trip the other way to get to a cash machine. Shame, as its on the way to the football. It must be one of the only businesses around that insist on cash, even the taxi drivers have given up these days.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be nice for businesses to cater for minority spending methods for those who can't or won't use contactless but with fewer and fewer people using it these days I think most of them can't be bothered to make the trips to the bank.
That sounds rather like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Surely in the general course of your life you occasionally pass an ATM that you could use to obtain a little stash of notes for such occasions.
DeleteNever have cash?
DeleteMudgie has notes in his wallet with the face of George VI
The pub's generally a bit of an off the cuff decision, and like I say it's the only business I ever come up against that would need cash so I'm not likely to go out of my way just to plan for that one place when there's other options.
DeleteNo, no "notes with the face of George VI" were ever issued.
DeleteOf 190 pubs I've gone to this year two have had a card only policy, so 1%, and being in Bristol and London it looks like a southern phenomenon. One was now offering only cask beers that were citrussy and/or murky so having five pints instead in the Avon Packet and Nova Scotia certainly wasn't cutting off my nose to spite my face.
Go in pubs, order a drink, put a pile of coins down or offer a note.
ReplyDeleteIf they complain, tell 'em to stick it !
What they gonna do, they've poured it, you've taken a swig? They can accept your cash or swivel.
Take a stand! Fight for freedom!
I have hazy memories of working next door to an off-licence in the 80s (I was a butcher's lad) and would chat to the staff there on our breaks. IIRC credit card transactions incurred a processing flat fee of, let's say £1, maybe more, plus 3% of the total sale. A lot of places used to have a minimum card spend back then. There were 6 different banks to choose from in the village. Whichever one they chose to bank with would be less than 10 minutes walk away, and provided cash banking and provided change as part of the service.
ReplyDeleteFast-forward to now, and I know staff running a taproom on an industrial estate. Card transactions can be as low as 0.3% of the transaction value. The nearest bank branch is a 20 mile round-trip, has restricted opening hours, and charges for both accepting cash and providing change. It's true that retail banks have tried to push people towards cashless for decades, but it's not hard to understand why some businesses find it easier to be card only. It's one less risk, one lower overhead.