With support for cash growing day by day, many businesses have already responded by reversing their card-only payment policy. But with many others still remaining cashless, leading cash handling experts Volumatic say it is time for businesses across the UK to really consider whether they want to support this drive towards protecting cash, and ultimately support their customers' wants and needs by accepting it, or if they want to risk losing trade and alienating customers by remaining or going cashless.
A new YouGov survey has shown that much of the British public is opposed to the UK becoming a cashless society and has found overwhelming support for cash as a valid payment method in the wake of a worrying number of businesses currently refusing to accept it.
The survey, published in mid-July, found just 3 per cent of the British public never use cash while 69 per cent of people in Britain oppose us becoming a cashless society – with only 12 per cent of people in favour of it. The majority of the British public (71 per cent) would support making it a legal requirement for businesses in the UK to accept cash.
Mike Severs, Sales & Marketing Director at Volumatic, says: “The results prove a real commitment to cash from the British public, and while alternative payment methods still remain popular, the fact that 97% of the UK still uses cash and want to continue using it, and that a huge chunk of the population would support a new law making it illegal to be cashless should be making businesses stand up and listen to public demand.”
These latest findings add further credence to other industry research from recent years, including the 2022 Cash Census from the RSA, which found that cash still plays a vital role to millions of people in the UK and that the UK is nowhere near ready to become cashless.
Volumatic’s own white paper research, ‘Consumers Demand Payment Choice,’ found that the majority of UK consumers wanted to retain the choice of using cash alongside other methods of payment.
Severs adds: “Companies need to remember that the so-called benefits of going cashless aren’t really benefiting either them or their customers. Cost-savings by not processing cash at the end of the day are made irrelevant by the continually growing fees from card issuers. Many businesses have already been burdened by power cuts and system failures that have made digital payments impossible for hours, and in some cases, days, leaving them without a way to accept payments for goods, leaving customers frustrated and with no choice but to take their business elsewhere.
In contrast, cash is reliable time after time, and there are also lots of advantages to accepting cash, plus intelligent solutions to make daily cash handling and processing a breeze.
Severs continues: “The benefits of cash for both businesses and consumers are clear to see. As well as protecting your customer’s personal data, not alienating certain sections of society and helping people budget, which has become increasingly popular during the cost-of-living crisis, cash also has much lower processing fees when coupled with intelligent cash handling solutions and is resilient against power cuts, cyber-attacks and much more – it really is time to stop ignoring cash.
“Businesses need to be aware of the growing consumer support for cash and by not accepting cash they risk losing trade, losing customers and facing higher costs, and can anyone really afford to do that in the current climate?
“Undoubtedly the most important reason for not jumping on the cashless bandwagon is keeping your customers happy and ensuring your business is supporting everyone in society. While many consumers do have the option to pay by card or mobile, this isn’t true for everyone – nearly 20% of our population rely on cash as their main payment method and even those that don’t want the option of using it for certain purchases.”
Already in use by the likes of Tesco, the Co-op Food Group and Subway, Volumatic’s all-in-one CounterCache intelligent (CCi) is the ultimate solution to help retail businesses validate, count and securely store banknotes. Its clever CashView Enterprise software can help monitor cash takings with real-time reporting, giving full accountability and managing cash from POS to bank and even helping to reduce CiT costs.
For a simpler option, Volumatic’s range of CountEasy money counting scales can count the till drawer in less than a minute, with 100% accuracy and eliminates the need for manual cash counting, meaning processing time is minimal and reducing shrinkage.
Nick Gillett 
Bira CEO Andrew Goodacre