Could the railway cease accepting cash?

[Bletchleyite]

I think you're misguided, I can't see most market stalls giving up cash for one.

I think they will in the long term. Or should be forced to, because I'm sure a lot of them like cash because they "don't have to pay tax"...

 

[Clip]

I think you're misguided, I can't see most market stalls giving up cash for one.

I see plenty having terminals to accept cards now so I think it may be you who is misguided especially as the technology gets cheaper and cheaper and you can do pay 2 pay using just your phone.

 

[Mag_seven]

I know it's not strictly speaking the railway but I wanted to use the Edinburgh trams this morning for a short hop only to discover that effectively you can only pay the £1.70 fare using coins as the machines don't take notes and there is a minimum spend for contactless. In the event I ended up walking.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I know it's not strictly speaking the railway but I wanted to use the Edinburgh trams this morning for a short hop only to discover that effectively you can only pay the £1.70 fare using coins as the machines don't take notes and there is a minimum spend for contactless. In the event I ended up walking.

The entire setup in Edinburgh is utterly bizarre. No card payments for small amounts. Mobile tickets only in packs of 10. Conductors, but they can't sell you a ticket (other than a Penalty Fare). The mind boggles as to which muppet thought of it, particularly when Edinburgh's buses, operated by the same organisation, are still a simple case of "pay the driver cash" (albeit exact fare).

 

[yorksrob]

You will be surprised that sooner or later they wont as everything will be done by phone or card - you can stomp your feet all you want about it but thats the truth whether you like it or not.

Not if customer choice has anything to do with it.

If it happens, it will be because of big business expecting everyone to fall in line with what's convenient for them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not if customer choice has anything to do with it.

If it happens, it will be because of big business expecting everyone to fall in line with what's convenient for them.

Will it? I would like not to have to deal in cash.

 

[yorksrob]

Will it? I would like not to have to deal in cash.

Yes it will, because there will be others who prefer cash.

 

[Llanigraham]

Will it? I would like not to have to deal in cash.

Are you honestly saying that if you just want to buy a 75p item in a shop you would not pay in cash? I'm sorry but I don't believe you.

And I cannot see the WI stall holders at a village fete having card machines for their jam and cakes, EVER!

 

[Bald Rick]

A big problem I can see is the definition of "Legal Tender".

Contrary to popular belief Legal Tender doesn't mean it has to legally be accepted as legally a person or a company doesn't have to sell you anything but rather it Legal Tender means something that has to be accepted in settling a debt. The best example I have been told is at a restaurant where you pay before you order such as McDonalds (yes I know some people don't consider it a restaurant) can legally refuse to accept cash as you aren't in debt to them when you are paying but a restaurant where you get the bill at the end can't refuse cash to pay a bill as you are technically settling a debt to them.

The problem is people who board a train at an unstaffed station without a ticket and offered to pay by cash the TOC may face legal problems if the passenger wanted to pay by cash and the TOC refused, the same problem would happen if a passenger wanted to pay with cash if there was a revenue block at a station.

It’s even more technical than that. Legal tender is a definition for settling a debt, as you say, but there are restrictions. This Bank of England webpage helps to explain. https://edu.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-legal-tender/

Interestingly, if I you try to settle a debt of more than 20p with 1p or 2p coins, this can be refused (and has been, several times).

 

[sprunt]

Will it? I would like not to have to deal in cash.

What do you mean, 'would'? You already don't have to. This is about everyone else being obliged not to use cash.

 

[Pigeon]

Looks like you are just making a mountain out of a molehill in getting a pre paid card. It really is quite simple

Looks like you are taking refusal to acknowledge that other people don't agree with you to the extreme of denying their experiences. I repeat - that account is typical, not just a one-off. The bit about them waiting until I've paid for it before changing their minds and deciding not to give me a card after all is particularly annoying because of the number of times it's happened.

the convenience offered to them with these new ways of paying

It's NOT "convenient". Not even a little bit. "Convenient" goes like this: (1) pull some cash out of my pocket and shove it through the window, then (2) pick up the ticket which the person on the other side shoves back. That's dead easy. I did it this afternoon without even having to wait for my blood oxygen saturation, down in the 80s from the walk to the station, to return to a level where my brain starts working properly. Any other method still requires those two steps - (1) may take place at a different window from (2), but they still both have to happen - but interposes several more unnecessary steps; that alone is (obviously) enough to make it less convenient, and with the number of ridiculous hoops those intermediate stages require jumping through it becomes an unmitigated pain in the arse.

Cash always works, because it does not depend on any technological back-end; you don't have to jump through hoops to make it work, it just does, all you have to do is hand it over; it doesn't randomly stop working because some computer has thrown a wobbly; it doesn't delay your change or refund for a week or two because fundamentally it's some other bugger who really has control of your money, not you; it doesn't require you to have a sufficiently massive surplus of money that it's no more than an annoyance when things go wrong, as opposed to something that may mean eating nothing but porridge for the rest of the week and hoping the electricity holds out to cook it with. It's very noticeable how the more someone is into thoughtlessly evangelising these non-cash things, the more impenetrable is the mind-block that prevents them having even the vaguest conception that that last part can actually be literally true, let alone understanding the ramifications of it being a not infrequent occurrence.

You will be surprised that sooner or later they wont as everything will be done by phone or card

FFS, you want me to get a bloody mobile phone as well now! What else do you want, blood?

 

[Dai Corner]

It's NOT "convenient". Not even a little bit. "Convenient" goes like this: (1) pull some cash out of my pocket and shove it through the window, then (2) pick up the ticket which the person on the other side shoves back. That's dead easy. I did it this afternoon without even having to wait for my blood oxygen saturation, down in the 80s from the walk to the station, to return to a level where my brain starts working properly. Any other method still requires those two steps - (1) may take place at a different window from (2), but they still both have to happen - but interposes several more unnecessary steps; that alone is (obviously) enough to make it less convenient, and with the number of ridiculous hoops those intermediate stages require jumping through it becomes an unmitigated pain in the arse.

Isn't obtaining the cash in the first place at least as inconvenient as paying by card? Unless you're a cash-in-hand trader or pocket money recipient it involves a trip to an ATM, bank or Post Office and using a machine not unlike the one in the shop or ticket office.

 

[Pigeon]

An occasional visit to the post office; that part is minimised, and everything in between is easy.

 

[Dai Corner]

An occasional visit to the post office; that part is minimised, and everything in between is easy.

I avoid even that, as well as saving time on every purchase, by using contactless whenever possible and getting cashback in shops occasionally. I'd urge you to give it a try for a week.

 

[Pigeon]

That would still mean going to the post office to get the money in the first place, but then additionally involve messing around to put the money on some other card, plus all the additional hassle of getting the card and of making it work and keeping it working and not being able to tell how much money is on it just by looking. Also, I dispute the "time saved" as whenever I'm in a queue and people ahead are taking a noticeably long time to pay they're nearly always using a card. And even granting that the potential for saving time is only five seconds or so at the outside; I get the money out while the till operator is putting my stuff in the bag, and the till operator has the change ready by the time I've picked the bag up.

 

[Dai Corner]

That would still mean going to the post office to get the money in the first place, but then additionally involve messing around to put the money on some other card, plus all the additional hassle of getting the card and of making it work and keeping it working and not being able to tell how much money is on it just by looking. Also, I dispute the "time saved" as whenever I'm in a queue and people ahead are taking a noticeably long time to pay they're nearly always using a card. And even granting that the potential for saving time is only five seconds or so at the outside; I get the money out while the till operator is putting my stuff in the bag, and the till operator has the change ready by the time I've picked the bag up.

Does the card you use at the Post Office not have contactless or chip & pin capabilities?

As to keeping track of how much money you have, I have a much better idea where mine goes now every transaction appears in my online and printed bank statements.

My experience in shops is the opposite of yours. I find the cash payers are the slowest.

 

[Pigeon]

It has no capabilities whatsoever apart from getting money out of the post office.

 

[Dai Corner]

It has no capabilities whatsoever apart from getting money out of the post office.

It sounds like you have a Post Office Card Account.

If you can get one of those you should be able to get a Basic Bank Account which comes with a debit card.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/basic-bank-accounts/


I'll leave it there as we're getting off topic for this thread.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are you honestly saying that if you just want to buy a 75p item in a shop you would not pay in cash? I'm sorry but I don't believe you.

I paid Apple Pay for a cup of tea at MKC earlier on, if that counts? OK, it was £1.75 but that's a similar magnitude.

And I cannot see the WI stall holders at a village fete having card machines for their jam and cakes, EVER!

I can - as I said our Scout Group mostly uses electronic payments now. Stripe and the likes are ideal for this.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My experience in shops is the opposite of yours. I find the cash payers are the slowest.

Even more so on buses.

Apple/Android Pay user (London style): phone quickly pulled from pocket, tapped on reader.
Cash: realise you have to pay after you're standing by the driver, be taken aback by this despite having had to pay for every other bus journey you make every day on the route, have no idea how much it is, ask the driver, get wallet/purse out, slowly count the money, drop some on the floor....etc!

OK, when paying my local bus fare by cash (as it's all I'm allowed to pay in on my local bus service) I have the fare ready, but almost nobody else does.

 

[dcbwhaley]

Most people convert larger coinage in that manner at these anyway. It wouldn't be a jump to convert to tokens of the same size as a 2p piece to avoid a need to modify the machines. This would also be needed were the 1p and 2p pieces abolished, something which many countries have already done with the 1 and 2 Euro Cent pieces which are of similar value, and is not an unlikely thing to happen over the next few years in my view.

But playing shove halfpenny with a debit card isn't very easy.

 

[dcbwhaley]

Which suggests to me people such as those on benefits. The same people that can get a bank account.

The spread of people who are refused a bank account is very, very small. We are talking illegal immigrants, people awaiting deportation and some criminals, although the latter are still likely to be accepted for the most basic account.

Since the Post Office card account was wound down, it's also easier than ever before with a wide range of even more basic accounts offered by banks.

To open a bank account you usually need a utility bill with your name

Not if customer choice has anything to do with it.

If it happens, it will be because of big business expecting everyone to fall in line with what's convenient for them.

One consequence of the final demise of cash, and the reason that government want that, is that the central bank would be able to set a negative interest rates in order to persuade people to spend more money and expand the economy.

 

[Llanigraham]

I can - as I said our Scout Group mostly uses electronic payments now. Stripe and the likes are ideal for this.

You may take your annual subs and regular payments that way, but sorry I bet you don't at the Village Fete for the tombola or the cake stall.
I really get the impression that you are so blinded by this cash free world you expect that you have lost touch with what it is like out here in the sticks.

 

[Roger100]

To open a bank account you usually need a utility bill with your name

Usually but not always. My children managed to open bank accounts when living with me.

Cash is extremely useful for making payments to ordinary individuals, but cards usually speed up payment in commercial transactions.

In the case of paying fares contactless cards have the advantage of speed if the system is implemented properly. People can pile onto a London bus almost as quickly as if the service were free, especially those buses that have multiple terminals. Just imagine how slow it would be with cash or even paper tickets that need to be inspected. Similarly with trains, there's no need to queue up at ticket offices or machines. And the Oyster card needs no proof of address or identity. You can get it from a machine or a shop with cash, and top it up with cash if you don't have a bank account.

There's no reason why cash and cards should not continue to co-exist, both have different conveniences. I don't think cash is going to disappear any time soon, although small value coins may well do so.

 

[The Ham]

There's no reason why cash and cards should not continue to co-exist, both have different conveniences. I don't think cash is going to disappear any time soon, although small value coins may well do so.

Half pence coins have gone in my childhood, I wouldn't be surprised if 1 & 2 pence coins go sooner rather than later.

When they do chances are stuff will still be priced as now (in the short term) but with rounding for cash.

Rounding would probably up to the nearest 5p for transactions up to £1, then rounding to the nearest 5p thereafter when paying in cash.

Such a rule would speed up the transfer from cash payments as people will feel that they are missing out on a few pence on a lot of transactions.

Over time prices would shift to bring in 5p steps. I wouldn't be surprised to see 5p coins being removed within my lifetime, as the removal of coins would likely have a shorter and shorter timeframe between even though the increase in size gets bigger.

Cash in hand workers would just adapt so that they only paid cash for larger transactions (such as a tank of fuel) and small value things get paid by card.

Given the amount you can earn before paying tax is fairly high over the course of a year paying a £3,000 credit card bill for all your small transactions isn't going to cause you much of a problem.

 

[Llanigraham]

Given the amount you can earn before paying tax is fairly high over the course of a year paying a £3,000 credit card bill for all your small transactions isn't going to cause you much of a problem.

You have to be joking!!
I pay very little tax as my income is my retirement pension and the small railway pension, so after paying for fuel, rates and food I would hve great difficulty finding £3k to clear a credit card bill.

 

[Indigo Soup]

You may take your annual subs and regular payments that way, but sorry I bet you don't at the Village Fete for the tombola or the cake stall.

Not yet, perhaps, but it's coming. With things like NFC and smartphones it's trivial to set up and requires no overhead other than the vendor having an NFC-capable smartphone (which most are now) and the customer having a similar device or an NFC payment card. I'm sure someone somewhere has even had an NFC chip implanted into themselves, though I suspect that's a step too far.

Does that mean people will need smartphones? Well, yes. It pretty much does. But that's the direction that society is moving in, and sooner or later it'll become very difficult to not have such things - in the same way that it's technically possible now to not have electricity in houses, but practically everybody does.

 

[Bald Rick]

Are you honestly saying that if you just want to buy a 75p item in a shop you would not pay in cash? I'm sorry but I don't believe you.

I do. I just don’t carry cash at all now, no need for it. If I owe somebody some money, I transfer it online.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do. I just don’t carry cash at all now, no need for it. If I owe somebody some money, I transfer it online.

Certainly my default method of payment these days is Apple Pay. My wallet only comes out if that is not accepted, regardless of the amount.

 

[atraindriver]

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