Cash is king: meet the Australians who don’t want dollars to die

Despite dwindling ATM numbers and forecasts about the death of cash, it remains very popular especially after the major Optus outage. See the surprising poll results.

Forecasts of the impending death of cash have taken another hit, and it’s no wonder a growing group of Australians are rediscovering a love of dollars and cents.

Despite the relentless trend towards digital banking, dwindling ATM numbers and a pandemic that made cash seem almost as unpleasant as Covid itself, physical money is hanging on admirably and may only be one or two major hacking attacks away from sticking around forever.

There are several groups of Australians who prefer cash ahead of cards, phones and apps when it comes to spending and saving, and only one of those groups are criminals.

Many shoppers re-evaluated cash last week amid Optus’s national outage hitting more than 10 million customers, banking and retail. When your tech fails, nothing is as secure as a few notes stuffed somewhere handy.

As readers’ letters and emails have shown in recent days, future problems like Optus – or big hacking scandals at financial or government institutions – will probably increase cash’s popularity and potentially reverse its decline.

And a new online poll of News Corp readers has uncovered strong support for cash. As at noon Tuesday, 68 per cent of 2500 people who voted said they still loved the feeling of folded money and used it a lot.

Australians continue to make 29-30 million monthly cash withdrawals, which have stabilised in the past two years, but are finding it tougher to get their cash out. In September Woolworths halved the amount people could withdraw at its supermarkets – from $500 to $200, while more bank branches have gone cashless – including Macquarie Bank planning to phase out cash across all branches next year.

While some businesses don’t want us to use cash, many Australians would like to see it more, including Optus customers who were left on hold last week.

INVESTORS

Cash has delivered solid financial returns so far this year, with the latest Reserve Bank interest rate rise pushing interest rates paid on some deposits above 5 per cent.

That’s better than this year’s share market performance, which has been flat, and better than the average annual growth in home values of 4.5 per cent. Cash deposits come with no risk of going backwards in a market slump, and most savings at financial institutions are government guaranteed.

The financial world’s current theme of higher-for-longer inflation and interest rates is good for

people with cash deposits.

Investment returns from cash are the highest they have been for years. Picture: iStock

WAITING STAFF

Tipping is not as widespread in Australia as elsewhere, but many diners still like to reward good service.

This is where carrying cash can make you seem like a saint to hardworking staff in the services industry.

BUSKERS

I really feel for buskers when wandering through shopping districts and other crowded public areas, as they perform in the knowledge that their pool of potential payers has shrunk dramatically in the past decade.

Coins are carried even less than notes that can be slipped into phone cases, and you don’t see many fivers sitting in buskers’ hats or guitar cases.

CRIMINALS

While cryptocurrency has become a medium of choice for many criminals in recent years, the use of cash for crooked stuff is still huge.

Just look at last month’s arrests across Australia for an alleged $229 million money laundering operation. Meanwhile crypto collapses and high-profile crypto court cases may also see cash become more favoured once again.

TRADIES

Okay, it’s true that tradies are breaking the law when they accept cash payments and don’t declare that income to the Australian Taxation Office.

But cash jobs themselves are perfectly legal and remain common. It’s only when the business owner fails to report it that the ATO that they risk being caught by the tax office’s sophisticated data matching systems that detect when people buy stuff that their declared income suggests they cannot afford.