The Royal Mint has now been instructed to strike no more coins. With the number of card-based transactions reaching more than 50%, it has been decided by the Treasury that coinage already in circulation – nearly 27 billion in total – is sufficient.
Yet, the mantra “cash is king”, used in business for generations, is as true now as it ever was, for regardless of a firm’s assets, order book or potential, being able to call on resources immediately matters. Certainly, cash in hand empowers those who use it, as transactions are anonymous, fast and easy. For as cash payments cannot be tracked by either those fraudsters who seek to do us harm or by greedy corporations which strive to know what all of us spend, when, and where, they are always most secure. It is also much better for local family businesses to receive payments in our legal tender, rather than to suffer late payments or the additional costs of having their money processed by global banks who charge for doing so.
Nevertheless, though surely most know the risks of cons and scams, many sensible people ignore them by purchasing and paying online. Simultaneously, in the past five years in Lincolnshire alone, a fifth of all the ATMs have disappeared. Meanwhile, nationally over 15,000 cashpoints have gone. For the common good, cash should continue to play a key role in the economy, but corporations, careless of the public interest, are complicit in killing ‘king’ cash.
Whilst the last Government introduced legislation – which I supported by backing amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Act – to ensure that free access to cash is protected, it remains at risk.
Although over a third of adults are living largely cashless lives, their risky choice must not lead to the decimation of cash altogether. Indeed, nearly 11 million people in this country either struggle to use online banking or choose not to do so. So, it’s welcome that whilst some so-called ‘experts’ predicted the death of cash during the Pandemic, the last figures showed that some 1.5 million adults in 2023 mainly used cash – a rise compared with the period before Covid.
Guaranteeing the option of notes and coins, with all their benefits, is why I am supporting the LINK Scheme, a not-for-profit organisation established to ensure that banking hubs remain open to those who need them, and that cash remains freely available and widely accepted.
Currently, most people live within one mile of a free to use ATM where they can withdraw cash from their bank accounts, but many of these cash machines are in cities or larger towns. So, because more still needs to be done for areas like ours, I have also asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take steps to ensure that people are able to access cashpoints in rural areas. As well as which, I have told her that no public institution or body should any longer exclude cash payments. Helpfully, cash can also be withdrawn freely at Post Offices throughout Lincolnshire and elsewhere. Our Postmasters do a fine job and should be given the opportunity by Government of providing more services; for example, why is it no longer possible to buy Premium Bonds at the Post Office?
None of us can afford to let cash slip through our fingers. Every payment made online gives remote international corporations more information about the purchase and sale of goods and services – valuable data which, once divulged, can itself be traded. Only cash gives people the freedom to live their lives free of such interference, and, for that reason above all others, cash must remain available on our high streets.
