Cashless society would leave 50% of Brits struggling
The cashless revolution may leave half of Britain (25m) struggling and facing exclusion from shops and restaurants, said Which? on Wednesday.
The UK is set to become a cashless society in the next 15 years but a new report from Which? found the country isn't prepared for that leap and that it could cause "significant harm" for millions still unsupported by digital innovations.
Six out of every 10 transactions (63%) were made with cash a decade ago, but today we use cash for just three in 10 transactions (34%), the review found.
Which? also found that this was in part driven by the disappearance of ATMs and that if the trend continued then cash transactions might fall 10% by 2026.
Although some Britons prefer paying cashless, there were still 1.3m UK adults that didn't have a bank account and could not pay without cash. As well, around 4.1m adults in the UK are in financial difficulty and cannot get access to credit, meaning digital payments aren’t always an option.
Which? said the biggest risks of going cashless to soon are the exclusion of some rural areas, which tend to have an older population that prefers to pay in cash, risks to personal independence for older people and those with disabilities that manage their affairs in cash, risk of increased debt and financial abuse and a risk of catastrophic IT failures.
A number of pubs, including the Boot in Freston, Suffolk, have already stopped accepting coins and notes and London buses have been cashless since 2014.