Coles will hoard cash over Easter to protect the supermarket from the risk that Armaguard, the money transit provider controlled by Lindsay Fox, collapses.

Mr Fox’s Linfox, which is locked in negotiations with the country’s largest banks and retailers over a short-term lifeline to keep the monopoly cash-in-transit group afloat, has engaged former union powerbroker Bill Kelty to represent its interests in meetings at the Reserve Bank of Australia on Wednesday.