Places not accepting real cash anymore

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Hi Member

Long time to chat with you all.  I wanted to give you a little incite on what I recently saw at a local university. Some of their retail service areas  ( gift shop, food outlets vending machine ) do not accept cash.  They only accept credit card and debit. 
So you noticed any other areas who are "cashless"?

cheers
Polarbear

I am cashless ….🥲

Yeah, we noticed a lot of personal cash check outs have been removed & in their place, automated check outs (for credit/debit).

Shoppers & even Value Village (discount used goods store) had several staff axed over this.  Usually one cashier will take cash & the rest are cashless -so yeah, a disturbing trend that's just getting worse.

BTW: welcome back! 

Hi Member

Long time to chat with you all.  I wanted to give you a little incite on what I recently saw at a local university. Some of their retail service areas  ( gift shop, food outlets vending machine ) do not accept cash.  They only accept credit card and debit. 
So you noticed any other areas who are "cashless"?

cheers
Polarbear

Scotiabank Arena in Toronto is cashless, but they have these mahines that will take cash and spit out a card that you can use in the debit machines at the concession or souvenir stands.  It seems like a waste of resources to do that; if the machines take cash and convert it, then someone has to take the cash out of the machine and count it…wouldn’t it be easier to just accept the cash?

A coffee shop near my house now only accepts debit or credit; the last time I went in, I ordered and went to pay with a five dollar note.  The lady said that they no longer accept cash, so I left the coffee on the counter and left.

Businesses should always offer the option to pay in cash.  If they don’t, then they will lose my patronage.

Businesses should always offer the option to pay in cash.  If they don’t, then they will lose my patronage.

Yes, I'm 100% in that camp.  i find the forced option to use self-check outs now (credit/debit) super annoying & I have voiced my bias to a few managers (not that they care/nor can they do much about it).  But I still feel it would be good if more people spoke up against it (& it made me fell better at the time ha!). 

I mean, with the exception of my mortgage, I have always kept out of debt by strictly using cash (& this conversion won't help future generations) IMO.  I admit I have done a lot of online shopping lately (& I have to really watch myself with that) but as far as day to day commerce goes, I still like to use cash to keep my spending down.

I personally think retailers and establishments going cashless is vital in this day and age.  Cash only attracts robbers and by switching to self-serve debit/credit card terminals it could pave the way for a new era with a drastic drop in cash thefts and panhandling (the latter of which I believe is a form of robbery).

Though I think panhandlers (which are on the rise from what I heard) will be quite unhappy.

I know Dominion stores in Newfoundland have several self-scan checkouts (and I do use them if I am there), but cashiers (who are unionized) went on strike a couple of years ago to protest job cuts and to reverse any layoffs, among their list of demands.  But I bet Loblaws (who owns the Dominion brand) will likely find a way to lay off all of the human cashiers in the years to come.

I wouldn't be shocked if Sobeys eventually introduces self-serve checkouts that do not accept cash.

I will also add that the reason businesses are switching to self-serve checkouts and/or strictly debit/credit card only is likely due to all the big minimum wage hikes that have been happening over the years.  In order to pay the big increases in minimum wage, businesses have to lay off workers.  A sharp increase in minimum wage will result in layoffs in favour of automation.

I did learn that my province will be increasing minimum wage to $15 per hour in October 2023.  There is going to be a big hike in minimum wage in April next year.  It will be interesting to see what will come out of it in terms of jobs.  I can see the likelihood of further phasing in of self-serve checkouts and self-serve kiosks that will only accept debit and credit cards.

I have noticed that there are fewer new banknotes where I live so far this year.  Normally there'd be plenty of new prefixes from April to now,but not this time.  I will mention that, after many years, I finally got the first FZ* prefix in my province (FZG, to be exact, and for there to be a few new $20s, it does makes sense, given today's rapid inflation), and I also saw a few new $5s with ING.  Sadly, no new $10s where I live, and the  dry spell continues on.

Businesses should always offer the option to pay in cash.  If they don’t, then they will lose my patronage.

I agree, because paying with cash is quite a lot cheaper than using debit card.  I withdraw so much cash to do me for two weeks, which is only one bank service fee as opposed to so many debit card payment transactions.  I use cash whenever I make payments and try to avoid using the debit card as much as possible.  It will be sad when the stores I go to become cashless, because it could eventually mean a heap of service fees in the span of a month if I use debit card frequently.

Unlike Dean, I will still go to any stores that switch to debit and credit card only, because I realize it could be the way of the future.

Businesses should always offer the option to pay in cash.  If they don’t, then they will lose my patronage.

I totally agree.

I too will not go places that are cashless

Just to let you know, yesterday Bank of Canada started a new survey on how would you feel in the near future if there is no more cash arround, like making your everyday transaction cashless, gazpump, groceries, donuts, etc, etc, how many plastic cards you have in your pocket, how many times you pulled it out everyday, how many bills you have, how many denominations,.  Ipsos/Bank of Canada survey. i guess the $10.00 bill will go out faster then we think, and the rest will follow...

  cashless future is tomorrow...

 

Just to let you know, yesterday Bank of Canada started a new survey on how would you feel in the near future if there is no more cash arround, like making your everyday transaction cashless, gazpump, groceries, donuts, etc, etc, how many plastic cards you have in your pocket, how many times you pulled it out everyday, how many bills you have, how many denominations,.  Ipsos/Bank of Canada survey. i guess the $10.00 bill will go out faster then we think, and the rest will follow...

  cashless future is tomorrow...

That's a very sad comment on where we are today.  Sad because of the survey & since young people seem to be convinced that it's okay to only use plastic (& not both). It's sad what the Better Than Cash Alliance has managed to do in such a short time.

It wasn't long ago that the news had features on two troubling trends emerging in Canada. One, that most Canadians owe $1.80 for every $1.00 they earn. The 2nd is that university students owe billions in student loans.  I get the 2nd scenario as I used a student loan to go through university (it was grant commuted to a loan b/c I was called back to work & made more than I expected- so was punished for it). I get the need (& convenience) of cashless transactions. But clearly living on loans & credit is not the answer.

There's absolutely NO good reason why cash cannot co-exist with digital (privatized payments) as it has for centuries. It at least allows the more frugal segment of the population to plan & budget (control their spending) not to mention be free from being monitored by Big Brother/Big digital corporations.

Just to let you know, yesterday Bank of Canada started a new survey on how would you feel in the near future if there is no more cash arround, like making your everyday transaction cashless, gazpump, groceries, donuts, etc, etc, how many plastic cards you have in your pocket, how many times you pulled it out everyday, how many bills you have, how many denominations,.  Ipsos/Bank of Canada survey. i guess the $10.00 bill will go out faster then we think, and the rest will follow...

  cashless future is tomorrow...

Very interesting post.  But I do have one question. On the survey, was there a question about which banknote denomination should be withdrawn from circulation? If there is such a question, I bet the majority voted for the $10 bill, and it would make sense since demand is super low now, they are much harder to come by, and a lot more banks stopped ordering them in recent years. The bank probably prints far fewer now these days and eliminating the $10 bill would be no major impact to our currency system.

It sounds like this survey is perhaps the first step towards the demise of cash; or to say the least, an overhaul in our currency system.  Canada is in a tough economy these days, and it sounds like the Bank of Canada is considering cost-saving measures in order to reboost Canada's economy. No wonder there has been lack of development of a new $5 bill so far!

Maybe if the $10 bill goes, Viola Desmond could move to the $5 bill, and they won't have to worry about making a difficult decision from a shortlist of female candidates.

This BoC survey is not uncommon. Other central banks around the world have been doing them, too. In fact, some central banks have legal obligations to do them.
I recall reading such reports from Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway in the last year ot two. If you search for them you can find them on the websites of the central banks (sometimes some ''digging'' is necessary).


Yes, Millennials/GenY and GenZ are totally underestimating the value of having cash and being able to pay with it and how dangerous a ''cash free'' society could and would be.
As GenY and GenZ don't care much about cash I can easily predict how the survey will go 

Update:
Here are two recent BoC reports about payments in Canada. Interesting read.

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2023/01/staff-discussion-paper-2023-1/
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2022/12/staff-discussion-paper-2022-23/

I enjoy reading these BoC reports redlock: thanks for sharing the links.

One thing that bothers me though is that I always get the feeling that the authors are trying to justify the need for cash (whether or not that is their findings).  They're hired by the BoC to report the population's use (or disuse) of cash but try as I may, I never get the feeling they're being quite as objective as they should be. I feel alarm bells need to be rung (& they never do- in their conclusions). Everything remains status quo.

The other problem is that they're surveying consumers but fail to survey retail businesses managers which really decide whether mobile apps, debit or bitcoin will be accepted. Value Village, Shoppers & many other retail outlet management closed all their person-to-person check-outs with automated (debit only) check outs & 1 cash check out. They laid off many staff & good luck getting service! 

What does that do? It certainly doesn't bode well for cash users (or people who wish to have 1 to 1 service)!

Other take-aways:

• Store card & cash loaded credit cards down in 2021. No surprise there as stores were closed often during the pandemic & people lost faith in these cards being valuable/used
• More cash withdrawn but less cash used in commerce.

Cash use greatest in ON, BC & Atlantic provinces // used more amongst 55+ or 19-35 demographic & on smaller purchases, restaurant payments, etc.  Debit card use greatest in prairie provinces.

Found it strange that less literate CDNS use cash more since I don't consider myself less literate (though most of my literate friends seem to hate to use cash!)