I live in a US area that already had 'must accept cash' laws on the books.

I'm 100% in favor, even though I personally don't use cash much. Technology is fickle and annoying, and credit card processing straight up fails all the time. It's nice knowing that having $40 on me is a reasonable failsafe for when the card reader messes up. I don't like needing to have a dozen different accounts and apps to exchange money.

I also don't like how cashless options hide so much of their operational costs. I fully support cash/credit pricing, when it reflects the true cost of these things (hint: those credit card bonuses to users are less than half of the fees).

If we ever did decide to embrace a cashless world, the government should own the entirety of the banking infrastructure, and all taxes could just be transaction based.

Not everyone has a credit card or bank accounts, and cash is legal tender, so yes, for equal access to all, businesses should be forced to accept cash.

Besides, cash is private. I don’t necessarily need my bank (or whoever can get my bank records) knowing exactly every place I spend my money.

I think there are a lot of positives arising from the demise of cash, just want to get that bias out from the start.

However my biggest issue with this is that they seem to identify a problem in the banking system not serving all of their community, and the way to fix this is to require all businesses to accept cash. The corrective action doesn't match the root cause of the identified issue.

I think cash will continue to decrease in popularity over time, so if the government isn't working to break down the barriers to the banking system then it's going to leave those folks stuck in an outdated system. They're also being denied all of the benefits the banking system provides.

U.S.-centric opinion here.

No, I don’t think so.

I’m of the opinion that the penny and the nickel should be eliminated (at the very least).

Cash is a huge inconvenience to everyone involved and I don’t think businesses should be forced to deal with it.

UK retail business owner here.

The business has been operating approaching 5 years. To my memory cash transactions have happened 4 times. We have been asked about cash payment perhaps 7-8 times.

We cannot put anything other than small (<£500) amounts of cash in the bank, and even that is an absolutely enormous hassle with outrageous fees for us. The small amounts of cash we've taken went in the petty cash tin and AFAIK it's still there! No idea really, we rarely use it & I rarely check.

Occasionally we are offered cash in return for a 'deal', which I always decline. The business can't pay its bills in cash and I can't pay my mortgage in cash so it's literally of no use. The money-making opportunity of tax evasion just isn't worth it, not that I would anyway.

It's worth mentioning that in the UK the price displayed is the price you pay, it already includes all taxes. It's near universal from around age 12 that people pay with cards. Contactless up to £100 and chip & pin over £100.

I do sometimes feel sorry for the occasional really elderly customer who wants to pay by cheque. We have no practical facility to bank cheques and nor do most businesses. That ended long before covid.

Around 1% of UK adults don't have a payment card. In my narrow experience they are mainly the very elderly who can't get to grips with online banking. Cash is still readily available and widely accepted, especially by the larger chains & supermarkets.

In summary I don't think retail businesses in the UK should be required to accept cash, certainly not unless banks are required to provide a practical way of depositing cash with a reasonable fee.

I think, from articles I've seen, that Australians are among the lowest users of cash in the developed world. We have always tended to be early adopters of banking technology, starting with ATMs all the way through to tap-and-pay devices and digital wallets (our Treasury has issued plans to start phasing out cheques, given how little we use them these days). During the pandemic, our usage of cash plummeted as people were worried about coming into physical contact with anything that other people had touched, and that low usage has continued even after the pandemic has eased.

However, despite all this, I think that businesses should still be required to accept cash from those people who choose to use it. There are various reasons that some people can't or don't want to use digital payment options. Cash is still legal tender, and should therefore be able to be used to actually buy things.

Further to that, though, there are anti-money laundering laws in place, to require businesses to report cash payments above a certain value (I think it's $10,000, but I'm not sure). The intention of these laws is to prevent criminals from using their ill-gotten gains to make legitimate purchases. Those laws should absolutely stay.

I predominantly use cash for purchases under 100 dollars. I find it way easier for me to overspend if I have my card on me, it doesn't feel like spending money to swipe a card as much as physically handing over cash. So I often don't even have my card on me. I've only ran into businesses that don't accept cash a small handful of times in my life, but it is a pain in the ass.

I feel like if it's only a small percentage of businesses not accepting a cash I don't have a problem, but I would be against it if most businesses stopped accepting cash. I don't like the idea of my every purchase being traceable, or if I lose my debit card I'm just SoL until I get a replacement.

While most of the times I do use a credit card I don't ever want to not have option to use cash?

Why I'm using a card:

• they impose extra fees, but then also force stores to charge those fees when somebody uses cash, at least I get some back with the card
• with card or is easier to log my spending with GNUCash

Also while I do use CC a lot I don't mind stores that are cash only. So I'm ok the other way.

Privatised ownership of Visa/Mastercard et al. is my primary concern. In the UK the Bank of England produces currency through the state owned Royal Mint and privatised De La Rue. The benefit to the economy of trustworthy currency is of course invaluable and while through taxes we pay for its manufacture, it is miniscule compared to the value it brings to the country.

When I pay for something with a £1 coin, I'm not paying a private company the privilege for doing so. Of course handling currency has its own costs and inefficiencies but that isn't money paid to an undeserving third party.

It is insanity that the UK and other nations have allowed Visa/Mastercard etc. to take hold such that a preponderance of transactions go through them and take a percentage each time. It would not matter if both those companies were British owned, any costs associated with purchases should go back to the state. This was understood and accepted with cash.

The unbelievably sensitive data that these companies collect cannot be overstated. I can accept that the state who I already submit my taxes to should hold this data, but private companies having it is an anathema to privacy.

If we want to move towards cashless societies for various reasons, then it should be the state who handles them and any transaction costs simply offset tax. Visa and mastercard have routinely abused their duopoly, seen with the £10 billion class action against mastercard. They have also regularly blocked transactions based upon US moral ideals and US government intervention.

I'll fully support a cashless society provided it is state owned and controlled, just as it is with cash. Not that I trust my Government, but I trust them more than foreign private companies who I can't vote out of office.

I don't think that businesses should be forced to accept cash. But I'm curious as to why they wouldn't want to? Accepting cash can save them on CC processing fees, especially when it comes to small transactions. Should businesses be forced to accept cards, for those of us who never/rarely carry cash? How about checks? I don't think they should. Just let businesses decide the method of payment they're willing to take based on what's best for them. Obviously, the fewer forms of payment they accept, the more likely they are to drive away a customer who wants to pay in a way that they don't accept (and that's their loss).

No, they shouldn't be forced to accept cash. If they have a reason that cash management is proving to be something they no longer want to deal with - more power to them.

The customer is not entitled to anything and does not always get to choose their tender. I can't rent a car with cash, I can't pay debit at the local fair, and if a nearby boutique has decided that they're ditching cash - that's just life.

If a business wants to turn away cash-users. that should be within their rights. They may lose money, but that is their decision.

Absolutely. Cash payments should be a baseline for commerce. Cash is tangible, anonymous, and a tried and true method of storing and exchanging value. If you don't accept cash, then you're telling me that I cannot do business with you unless I have a bank account or credit card. Cash requires no additional resources in order to transact (no internet connection, no electricity). There is 0 ambiguity about the situation. You don't have to worry about a card getting declined, you don't have to worry about someone stealing your info, as a merchant, you don't have to worry about chargebacks.
I don't like cash-only businesses, because sometimes, I'm not carrying any on me, but if I do have cash I expect to be able to spend it anywhere with no problems.

I really think cash should always be allowed. Some podcast (maybe a cortex) had a host put it in a way that really resonated with me, about keeping a 20 on you at all times. It was something along the lines of:

Cash will always work as a way to get goods or services. Your bank can have a technical glitch and make all your money be unusable for a time, or there can be a bs fraud issue that means your cards won’t work, or the POS can have a random glitch, or a million different things can happen between you tapping your card and it working. But with cash, you can always hand over a $5 (or $10) bill and get a coffee, or some food, or anything else you need. There’s nothing that can come in the way of that exchange, it always works.

there's a debate around this subject going around in the netherlands at the moment. it's funny to see the debate mirrors the viewpoints in this thread perfectly. from @norney's perspective (might i assume you live in a more urban area?) being the same as in the big cities here. to be fair, i got some cash a while ago and it was the first time in a year or so i had cash on me? it's bad enough i've heard jokes about people getting cash (tips or whatever) and saying "oh nice, i've got cash for my dealer again", because there's no other place you need to use cash (or realistically ever do).

the flipside here is mostly from either rural places or smaller towns, and the political parties pushing for cash needing to be accepted using the arguments @bengine does. or at least, the flawed side of it, without fixing the root causes.

personally i'm of the opinion banking needs to be made more private, that banks can't see your every transaction unless there's a warrant or some sort of procedure to ensure your privacy remains. realistically though, it's more like my usage of the internet: i'd love to only use FLOSS things, but even if i use my own email server i know there's still gmail on the other side, or i guess in this case i know there's still cameras or tracking in a million other ways so cash being private feels like a drop in the bucket

Australian here. I used to be pretty passionate about this topic for privacy and rights reasons. But I struggle to care anymore. I don't even carry my wallet anymore, just phone and keys. Continuing to use cash purely to protect privacy is just too much of a burden and it seems most restaurants have stopped taking cash post covid.

I'm in a country where cash acceptance is mandatory and I appreciate that for privacy reasons.

However, I am all for getting rid of coins less than 10 cents (and setting prices to multiples of 10 cents accordingly). Paying with small coins at a human checkout just inconveniences literally everyone and vending machines tend to not accept them either, so they just end up wasting space in my wallet until I get rid of them at a self-checkout in one of the very few stores that have them here.

I usually tell people my small overlap with most conspiracy theorists is that I think cash is king. In saying that I use my card sometimes coz it's convenient. My point being why not have both? Choice is the spice of life.

I read Debt the first 5000 years and from what I remember we are kinda going back to the first form of currency with the whole cashless money thing. Physical coin was only needed to pay soldiers.* I found this interesting. I think people just need to be more adaptable to change and be accepting of these types of things.

*I'm not 100% sure on this as it was a long time ago I read the book and I'm also not a very smart man but the book is still very good.

No, I don't think so. I prefer cash (and privacy focused cryptocurrencies) for the privacy benefits, but I don't think other people should be forced to facilitate my preferences.

There's enough privacy violations already. I pay cash whenever possible since its practically untraceable. Kinda like a natural VPN for currency. I think cash will die out at some point, but I'll try pushing for it to last for as long as possible.

I see this debate often, and usually most comments are from the buyer side. I’m a small retailer and I accept both cash and credit. One thing about credit (and debit since it uses the same exchange) is that I’m charged a fee for every transaction and because I am a true small business, I can’t negotiate a great fee (mine is good, but not as good as what say Walmart pays). So I add that fee to my prices. All businesses do this, but small businesses can’t eat any cost. Large stores can get the better fees and not be as price sensitive to them because of the volume they do. But I’m also in a business where consumers are very price sensitive too, a $10 price difference can make or break a sale, so my habit is to charge a cash price, and then a credit price that is say 3% higher to cover the transaction fee. All small retailers face this conundrum and usually you’ll find that “mom & pops” with low volume/low margin products will prefer cash because as bad as you think cash controls may be to deal with, nothing is worse than seeing that processor fee fly out of your account at the end of the month or losing a sale over a very small amount.

There’s a sweet spot with cash deposits at the bank though. All banks charge for cash deposits over a certain monthly amount, so my business has checking accounts at two different banks so that if needed, I have a place to deposit cash without incurring a fee for doing so.

I get why large businesses that are high volume prefer credit, it likely works out cheaper for them (and less employee theft), but I bristle at all these random laws that really just hurt small businesses, especially when it something that is purely about legislating convenience.

As a buyer, I want cash to remain for privacy reasons. I remember the days after 9/11 when the US government started chasing after people for buying certain books and it just seems like that at some point, if I want the privacy, I don’t see why the government should legislate it away.

I would prefer to keep cash available for any smaller retail. We could eliminate penny, nickle, and dime and just round up to nearest 25 cent. I don't see a reason a car dealership or other places that only deal in large retail (specialize in only $1k+) products would need to accept cash.
If you eliminate cash then everyone would need to be responsible for having a way to accept transactions, that means everyone has to have cell service and cell phone to process a transaction at all times in all locations, anything less would be a detriment to the world and you would no longer be able to sell products second-hand.

I could give more reasons for privacy and security on why I support keeping cash, but if you can't understand the loss of secondhand transactions and recycling material over corporate convenience then those points won't really matter to you.

As a coinroll hunter in canada, I hope cash is king for many years to come, I'm expecially worried about them making the nickel go the way of the penny, as theres still some neat old nickels floating around in circulation

Not long ago I got 2 bundles of dimes, and in there was 4 rolls of silver dimes, thats an incredible find, they are worth about $370 and only costme $20

I'll be very sad when coins artaken away, but at least if it happens tomorrow, I'll have the memory of coin roll hunting for a whole year, and having great luck with it

I have over $400(face value) in change sitting in my dresser drawers that ive culled from circulation

I joke if someone breaks and enters my house looking for valuables they will be mega confused why I have hundreds of dollars in small change