An overwhelming majority of Australians do not want to see a cashless society any time soon, if at all, new research has confirmed.
A survey of 1,000 Australians found that 65% do not want to go cashless in the short term (by 2022).
But the headlines about this survey focused on the minority of Australians who say they are OK with having no cash.
"More than a third (35%) of Australians would be happy to go cashless by 2022," reads a media release from ME Bank. (ME Bank is currently promoting a new digital debit card).
"More than one in three Australians (35%) would ‘happily’ say goodbye to using coins and notes in as little as a year" wrote finance journalist Tom Watson in Mozo.
A cashless supermarket is "creepy," "dystopian" and "total surveillance shopping" reported Matthew Knott in the Sydney Morning Herald after visiting Amazon Fresh in Logan Circle, Washington DC (USA).
"To shop in an Amazon Fresh store is to enter a commercial equivalent of the Panopticon, an all-seeing system of prison surveillance designed by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century," wrote Matthew Knott.
"The company, somewhat creepily, knows exactly what you have selected during your trip through what it vaguely describes as a combination of “computer vision, algorithms and sensor fusion”.
"There are no obvious cameras following you as you shop, but customers are most definitely being tracked.
I also had no idea how much money I had spent during the visit."
Woolworths in Australia discovered that Aussies want to pay for their food and essentials with cash and they will move to another supermarket in order to do so.
Even young people don't support going cashless.
Millennial Australians (aged 25 to 39 years of age) "are the most responsive (45%) to the potential shift to a cashless economy" says ME Bank. In fact 55 per cent say NO to a cashless society.
Generation Z (aged 18 to 24) are even more opposed to going cashless. 60% want to keep their notes and coins.
So why do the media and banks focus on what the minority are being encouraged to think and say?
Financial institutions profit from cashless transaction fees and the information associated with card and phone payments.
Banks and card companies may want to go cashless but ordinary Australians are consistently saying NO to a cashless future.
Please help us combat the fake news and get our message out there. Share our petition on your Facebook or social media pages. This is the easy shareable link:
https://www.change.org/SayNotoCashlessSociety
This is what our petition is calling for:
1) Shops must accept our legal tender, cash (notes and coins) as payment for goods and services under $10,000, subject to limitations around small denomination coins , like 5 cent pieces.
2) Government must mandate our right to choose how we pay for goods and services in shops and supermarkets - ie: Pass a law to enshrine our right to pay with cash if we choose.
Together we are winning the war against cash. let's keep the campaign going and getting stronger. There's only one way to get our message taken seriously in Canberra - numbers of signatures on our petition.
Thanks and yours in cash,
Jason