Which year will the UK go cashless?

[jon81uk]

This is not the gotcha you think it is..
You forget that they cant accept cash either when the systems go down. The managers wont take the risk of money going missing and it messes up stock levels as most tills are tied to the stock and ordering systems.
(I used to work as a manager at McDs before we took cards . If the till system goes down you would close.)

Depends which tech goes down, if the retailers till system is down then yes as you say they can't take cash either, but if it is just the payment processor down then many places could still take cash and some will take cards offline and process later.

 

[LYradial]

i don't see your point. Could you clarify? from making life harder than it need be, in this instance the Luddite way was much much easier

In this instance the Luddite way was easier, not harder.

i seem to have found using a forum much harder than talking

 

[renegademaster]

i don't see your point. Could you clarify?

Card machines are slower than handing over a coin or two

 

[birchesgreen]

Card machines are slower than handing over a coin or two

Well not really in my experience but YMMV.

 

[Cross City]

Card machines are slower than handing over a coin or two

I'd highly depute that claim given the amount of people (usually old'uns) who get to the front of the till and are apparently mystified that they have to pay for the things they want, go digging through their handbags or pockets for their purses/wallets and spend 5 hours counting out 50p pieces. It infuriates me more than it should.

Some machines might be quicker processing cash vs card such as some car parks but almost all transactions are faster and much more secure using contactless card or phone payment.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jul 2024 ==

I have to confess, yesterday I drove into a car park, went to the machine, pressed the screen to choose English, stuck my coin in the slot and magically my ticket printed. 15 seconds it took, much to the amazement of the technically savvy who were still waving bits of plastic around waiting for those magic words. “ authorising, please wait”.

i did it twice in two different car parks

Nearly all the car parks I use have app payment so I don't even need to queue up to use the ticket machine, I've paid before I've even left my car.

Infinitely quicker, and safer.

 

[jon81uk]

Card machines are slower than handing over a coin or two

Well not really in my experience but YMMV.

This is specific to pay and display car park machines I think, many use an old mobile phone data system that is slow to dial up and authorise.

Generally on-premises card machines are on a wired network and have fewer issues.

 

[skyhigh]

Card machines are slower than handing over a coin or two

Literally a coin or two, when you have exact change ready in your hand, maybe. Anything more and the time it takes to hand over the cash, let the till operator count it and then get your change is much more time consuming than simply using a contactless payment.

In my general experience somebody will often take a few items up with a fiver ready (or whatever) and then act totally mystified when the amount due is actually more than they expected and start rummaging through bags/pockets/wallets to find some extra cash.

 

[sor]

go henry https://www.gohenry.com/uk/despicableme/ is one of many such products.

Starling also offer something similar, a card that is linked to your bank account with them but of course separate in that your kid can only spend what you put into it. They also get access to an app where they can check balance and transactions, and of course you can too.

When was the last time the whole countries banking system was down for days?
You are making a rather strange argument as while there may be an outage of a few hours for one or two places which means you come back later. If mastercard or visa goes down. I am not aware of any long term outage.

Not the whole country, but RBS had an IT meltdown in the early 2010s that affected all of their brands and essentially all of their operations - the "cash is king" types wouldn't have got that much further unless they really do keep it in the mattress.

I have to confess, yesterday I drove into a car park, went to the machine, pressed the screen to choose English, stuck my coin in the slot and magically my ticket printed. 15 seconds it took, much to the amazement of the technically savvy who were still waving bits of plastic around waiting for those magic words. “ authorising, please wait”.

i did it twice in two different car parks

And I've had the opposite, where I actually tried to use cash (to get rid of spare change) and had to try two different machines to get one that would actually take coins, with the overall transaction taking longer than a contactless card transaction would have.

Not some tiny car park operator in the middle of nowhere either - but a council car park within spitting distance of their HQ! (Ipswich, to be exact, and since it's a rail forum I may as well point out that it's a lot cheaper to park there and walk to the railway station than to use greater anglia's car park)

 

[LYradial]

I am wondering why I should buy a new mobile phone, £400, and an unlimited data contact £20 a month, just to pay my £2. car parking.

my freebie iphone6 with its cracked screen and broken home button does all that I need

 

[londonbridge]

This is not the gotcha you think it is..
You forget that they cant accept cash either when the systems go down. The managers wont take the risk of money going missing and it messes up stock levels as most tills are tied to the stock and ordering systems.
(I used to work as a manager at McDs before we took cards . If the till system goes down you would close.)

Er, wrong, when I went past the Sainsburys the security guard and two managers were at the door telling customers “cash only”.

 

[birchesgreen]

Er, wrong, when I went past the Sainsburys the security guard and two managers were at the door telling customers “cash only”.

If there has been a full system crash then they won't be able to keep track of stock going out, then they'll close. If its just the payment system then they may remain open. Obviously in that case it was the latter.

I am wondering why I should buy a new mobile phone, £400, and an unlimited data contact £20 a month, just to pay my £2. car parking.

Most people tend to use their phones for other purposes than just pay for parking but you do you.

 

[renegademaster]

Er, wrong, when I went past the Sainsburys the security guard and two managers were at the door telling customers “cash only”.

Can confirm they did this a few months ago in croydon as well

 

[joieman]

The media not so long ago made a fuss about retailers removing self-service checkouts, which the retailers claimed were not favoured by customers. Personally, I very much prefer self-service checkouts, as one of the most annoying things is to only have one or two items and be stuck behind a trolleyfull of stuff (though occasionally kind folks take pity on me and allow me to go in front). But there is one thing about self-service checkouts that majorly irks me: following lockdown, most retailers have disabled cash on half of the self-service checkouts in each store. Unfortunately both cash and card-only checkouts are more often than not in the same aisle, meaning there is only one queue for both types of machines, meaning that we introverts usually have to declare to the staff whether we're using our cards or not, which rather defeats the purpose of the self-service checkouts, and totally messes up the queues! Either they should have separate aisles for card-only self-service checkouts and thereby split the queues appropriately, or reinstate the cash function on all the machines. If supermarkets did this, most of the faff of using self-service checkouts in the 2020s would be solved.

 

[PeterC]

The media not so long ago made a fuss about retailers removing self-service checkouts, which the retailers claimed were not favoured by customers.

Not favoured? My local supermarket has just taken out a manned till in order to put in more self checkouts. Before people were queuing for the self checkouts despite cashiers being free.

What annoys me is people trying to scan a trolley load at a self checkout designed for hand baskets. It's far slower than using a cashier.

 

[zero]

What annoys me is people trying to scan a trolley load at a self checkout designed for hand baskets. It's far slower than using a cashier.

UK supermarkets need more self-checkouts designed for trolleys

 

[joieman]

UK supermarkets need more self-checkouts designed for trolleys

My local Morrisons had a series of extra-large self-service checkouts installed last year or so, which is great, but as I said earlier, I think that card-only self-service tills need to be separate from cash tills, or abolished altogether.

 

[londonbridge]

The media not so long ago made a fuss about retailers removing self-service checkouts, which the retailers claimed were not favoured by customers. Personally, I very much prefer self-service checkouts, as one of the most annoying things is to only have one or two items and be stuck behind a trolleyfull of stuff (though occasionally kind folks take pity on me and allow me to go in front). But there is one thing about self-service checkouts that majorly irks me: following lockdown, most retailers have disabled cash on half of the self-service checkouts in each store. Unfortunately both cash and card-only checkouts are more often than not in the same aisle, meaning there is only one queue for both types of machines, meaning that we introverts usually have to declare to the staff whether we're using our cards or not, which rather defeats the purpose of the self-service checkouts, and totally messes up the queues! Either they should have separate aisles for card-only self-service checkouts and thereby split the queues appropriately, or reinstate the cash function on all the machines. If supermarkets did this, most of the faff of using self-service checkouts in the 2020s would be solved.

That one is true, in my local Sainsburys the left bank is card only whilst the right side is cash/card, but there’s only one queue, so when you’re wanting to pay cash you get to the front of the queue, a card one opens up, you stand there and someone behind you says “there’s one over there mate”, you shouldn’t have to go telling people in the queue behind you which payment method you’re using as it’s nobody else’s business except you and the self checkout attendant so that they can guide people to the correct checkout.

 

[jon81uk]

My local Morrisons had a series of extra-large self-service checkouts installed last year or so, which is great, but as I said earlier, I think that card-only self-service tills need to be separate from cash tills, or abolished altogether.

My local Sainsbury's has also added more "bigger shop" self-checkouts, removing maybe four staffed checkouts. We use the SmartShop self-scan 99% of the time though, even if just buying two items its easy to scan and put into my bag as I go.

In London most of the Tesco Express and Sainsbury's Local stores don't have cash self-checkouts, if you want to pay cash you need to wait for the single staffed till.

 

[Howardh]

Phasing out coins should be the first step, do we really need 1ps and 2ps for example?

Yes! Or tokens of similar value!

Why?? I was on Lytham Pier and noticed the majority of slot games took 2p coins, and it hit me if phased out then parents are asking children to use 5p (pretty useless) or 10p coins - using the latter can bring up a huge bill at the end of a session where 2p's don't!

I suppose if phased out they could be replaced by plastic coins which get converted back if you win!

 

[jon81uk]

Yes! Or tokens of similar value!

Why?? I was on Lytham Pier and noticed the majority of slot games took 2p coins, and it hit me if phased out then parents are asking children to use 5p (pretty useless) or 10p coins - using the latter can bring up a huge bill at the end of a session where 2p's don't!

I suppose if phased out they could be replaced by plastic coins which get converted back if you win!

Yes actually penny falls machines are the only reason 2p coins need to exisit. I expect plastic would be too light, it would still need to be metal coins of some sort

 

[GusB]

You will find those shouting the loudest that "cash is king" and using those who are disabled or elderly as the reason are mostly business owners who like cash not going through the books.

Cash has been supplanted by more convenient ways of paying and as time has gone one and the tech to take card payments has become cheaper, it makes sense to those businesses who are not trying to dodge tax.

Lots of legitimate businesses (around here, certainly) still process quite a number of cash transactions and I don't think it's very fair to suggest that they're all avoiding tax. While there are probably a handful of businesses out there that are dodging tax, don't tar them all with the same brush.

Both my local pubs now happily accept card payments and the one that had the £10 minimum spend seems to have dropped it. Even though contactless has been around for a good while, it only really took off here at the beginning of the pandemic. Even then, the older folks who come in are still very much cash only. If I'm out for the evening, I'll settle my bill and pay with contactless at the end of the night but if I'm just out for the odd pint or two, I'll pay by cash. Those transactions go through the till the same way.

I still use cash for parking - it's far quicker and easier than having to check which app they use and go through the faff of downloading it, putting card details in etc.

This is not the gotcha you think it is..
You forget that they cant accept cash either when the systems go down. The managers wont take the risk of money going missing and it messes up stock levels as most tills are tied to the stock and ordering systems.
(I used to work as a manager at McDs before we took cards . If the till system goes down you would close.)

I worked for a large supermarket some years ago and if the systems went down we'd still process customers who were waiting at the checkouts. It'd usually entail estimating the value of the goods in the basket or trolley and agreeing a value with the customer. Cash transactions would still be processed, cheques would be hand-written by the customer instead of being printed (we still manually wrote the guarantee card number on the back then anyway) and fall-back card machines (the ones that took an imprint of the card using carbon-paper slips) were located at every till. There was no way to authorise these online and they'd be processed manually in the cash office.

Stock control systems would certainly be out of kilter for a while and there would undoubtedly be financial loss, but the thinking was that it was better take the hit and get those customers out of the way than to have to deal with a load of abandoned trolley-loads; it'd be too time consuming for staff to put everything back on the shelves and anything that was chilled or frozen would have to be wasted because it wasn't certain how long they'd been out of cold storage.

 

[jon0844]

This is specific to pay and display car park machines I think, many use an old mobile phone data system that is slow to dial up and authorise.

Generally on-premises card machines are on a wired network and have fewer issues.

I use car parks where my details (and card) are held on file, so I am charged automatically by ANPR, or I use an app to pay as I walk into town/board the train etc.

Car park machines (many now being removed entirely so you have to use your phone) are often incredibly slow and clunky, especially when you must enter your number plate on a non-QWERTY keyboard that is incredibly unresponsive because it's designed to be heavy duty and withstand loads of abuse (so it operates like it's been vandalised by default).

 

[johnnychips]

My local ASDA has installed trolley self-checkouts. The disadvantage is that you can’t start loading your stuff until the whole lot is checked out. In theory you can have your bags ready on the checkout to load into them; in practice it doesn’t work.

 

[Howardh]

One negative for cashless is both my credit and debit cards are rejected on buses so I always have to carry some cash with me for that alone. Worries me if buses went totally cashless that I could be stranded somewhere if by card fails. As far as i can see buses can't do PIN that happens in shops if the card is rejected.

Could ask the bank for replacement cards to see if they work, but I get my bus pass in the next few months, so I'll just carry coins until then!

 

[jon81uk]

One negative for cashless is both my credit and debit cards are rejected on buses so I always have to carry some cash with me for that alone. Worries me if buses went totally cashless that I could be stranded somewhere if by card fails. As far as i can see buses can't do PIN that happens in shops if the card is rejected.

Could ask the bank for replacement cards to see if they work, but I get my bus pass in the next few months, so I'll just carry coins until then!

Sounds like the bus company need better systems.

On TfL the bus tap won't ever be rejected because you need to enter the PIN. It will only get rejected if you are known to TfL to have a "bad" card.

 

[Howardh]

Sounds like the bus company need better systems.

On TfL the bus tap won't ever be rejected because you need to enter the PIN. It will only get rejected if you are known to TfL to have a "bad" card.

On Manchester's buses (Bee Network) I can't see anywhere where a card can be entered and PINned; I'll ask a driver, maybe there is a method. Didn't mind my debit card not being accepted as my credit was always working, now that doesn't!!

 

[jon81uk]

On Manchester's buses (Bee Network) I can't see anywhere where a card can be entered and PINned; I'll ask a driver, maybe there is a method. Didn't mind my debit card not being accepted as my credit was always working, now that doesn't!!

If they have it set up properly as a travel system it should never decline the card and need it to be entered with a PIN, this is how TfL have it.

 

[12LDA28C]

I always carry cash and on several occasions it's saved my bacon because other payment systems have gone down. Never carrying cash seems pretty foolish to me. Modern so-called 'technology' is not infallible.

 

[Howardh]

I always carry cash and on several occasions it's saved my bacon because other payment systems have gone down. Never carrying cash seems pretty foolish to me. Modern so-called 'technology' is not infallible.

Could card readers that belong to a specific bank all go down in case of one of those cyber attacks? Is it possible for all readers to go down regardless of bank?

 

[Busaholic]

I always carry cash and on several occasions it's saved my bacon because other payment systems have gone down. Never carrying cash seems pretty foolish to me. Modern so-called 'technology' is not infallible.

It is foolish, which is why you hear fools advocating it!