24/09/2023 6:45 | Analysis
Australia is working to increasingly eliminate cash transactions and is preparing to move to a “cashless future” that some believe could become a reality as early as the next decade. Some Australian banks are already beginning to refuse cash from their customers, and if Australians come across a branch where physical money is still issued, then according to many, bank officials “grill” them even when they want to withdraw their own money from your own account. People do not win even if the bank allows them to withdraw their money – many businesses subsequently refuse to serve them with cash.
pixabay.com
Description: Money, currency – illustration roto
Questionnaire
In your opinion, did CT moderator Jakub Železný handle Friday’s debate with Miroslav Ševčík in Událosty, comments?
voted: 1778 people
Sky News Television in early summer she informedthat a large amount of cash worth more than a billion dollars has disappeared from circulation in Australia in the last year and some Australian banks are already starting trial operations of cashless branches and the news.com.au server then points outthat Australia could be “functionally cashless” within the year, and by the end of the decade, according to some, physical money will disappear entirely.
The rapid movement towards a “cashless society” is not self-evident. People often find themselves with limited access to cash as many Australian banks are already restricting cash withdrawals, closing ATMs or introducing branches that refuse to dispense cash altogether.
Richard Holden, professor of economics at the UNSW Business School in Sydney, Australia, therefore believes that by 2025, Australia will be functionally a cashless country and physical money will be “an absolute rarity”. “If the government doesn’t get involved in accelerating this process, I think we will be truly cashless by 2030,” he said after Macquarie Bank in Australia this week she announcedthat from November next year they will already “abolish cash” and thus followed in an even stronger form the rejection of cash, which had already been introduced by the Commonwealth Bank, NAB and ANZ, which had stopped handling cash in only a few branches so far.
Photogallery: – Members of the CNB banking board appointed
While the decision to “go cashless” has attracted backlash in Australia in recent months, the country’s banks have largely ignored those critical voices, and financial expert Sarah Wells expects Australian banks could soon begin some sort of “rationing system” of cash in ATMs.
“There is a possibility that if we reduce the demand for cash or reduce its availability, then the amount of physical cash actually held will be limited,” she said Wells to the British newspaper Daily Mail.
At the same time, the pursuit of a cashless future is already bringing many experiences that they describe as “totalitarian experiences”. For example, one of the Australian professional poker players, whose bank account was blocked for depositing cash into his account, after which Westpac told him his money would be frozen until he “properly explained” how he obtained the funds. According to news.com.au, there are also people who claim that bank officials “grilled” them when they tried to withdraw more than 45,000 crowns in cash.
Photogallery: – Money in times of the coronavirus
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics already show today that ATM usage has fallen dramatically in recent years, from 78 million withdrawals in December 2008 to just 30 million in June this year. According to the Australian Financial Sector Union, more than 1,600 bank branches closed between June 2017 and June 2022, and the only thing that revived the use of cash in the country was the Covid-19 period, when the number of cash transactions increased to 27 percent of 23 percent in the previous year.
While people were more interested in paying in cash during the height of the covid pandemic, businesses, on the contrary, gradually began to take this option away from them, and with reference to covid-19, some merchants stopped accepting cash. While in February 2020, 99 percent of businesses in Australia accepted cash, in June 2022, 6 percent of businesses refused to serve you when paying with cash.
Chris Vasantkumar, a lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, hopes physical money won’t disappear entirely – if only because he says there are a number of reasons to keep cash. He cited the function of money as a store of value, which some like to hide “under the mattress”, but also the threat to privacy due to the transition to cashless transactions, as this may subsequently fall due to calls for a reduction in crime due to greater transparency. He also sees a significant problem in the risk of the reliability of cashless transactions, as in the past due to outages in the IT systems of banks in stores, it was seen that while those with cash took their purchases away, Australians relying only on payment cards were waiting at cash registers or gas stations stations a very unpleasant surprise.
Photogallery: – Michl as governor
Also the ABC news server he noticesthat Australia’s transition to a cashless society raises considerable concerns about financial exclusion, privacy and security.
While the benefits of moving away from cash for some people include greater convenience and transparency, the transition to a fully digital economy also poses the risk of excluding certain groups of society. Chris Berg, director of RMIT University’s Blockchain Innovation Hub, which focuses on cryptocurrencies, told ABC News that while many politicians in the country are currently talking about “the end of cash as if it’s something we should be striving for”, he this should not have been something for politicians to decide, especially if some people still need cash payments to survive.
Berg pointed out that among the groups paying mainly in cash are not only the elderly, but also, for example, residents of Australia, living in its more remote areas, who have less access to digital financial services. Among the examples, there is also a warning that victims of domestic violence or people affected by natural disasters such as floods or fires in the Australian bush will have problems due to the absence of cash. Due to electricity and telecommunication outages, people affected in this way will not be able to buy anything without cash.
Photogallery: – Protests against the G20 in Rome
An example of this already exists and ABC News cites the devastating floods in Lismore last year, during which electronic payment systems went down, leaving flood-affected people unable to pay for essentials such as water, food and fuel. At the time, residents were troubled by power outages for up to several weeks, and people relying on a “cashless future” were finally saved by five local credit companies, which sent a helicopter to the city with an ATM full of cash.
We wrote:
Did you like this article?
You can support the independence of our editorial office with a monetary donation of any amount by bank transfer to the following account:
131-981500247/0100
The QR code contains payment information, determine the amount yourself.
Are you a politician? Post whatever you want without editing. Register HERE. Are you a reader and want to communicate with your representatives? Register HERE. advertisement
The article contains labels
Australia , banks , security , economy , finance , shops , money , paying , payments , privacy , cash , payment cards , Sky News , abc NEWS , news.com.au , cashless transactions
author: Radek Kotas
2023-09-24 05:09:00
#Explain #money #coming #Australia #starting #move #cash #clear #problem
