News Archive 2024

This link below takes you to how a bus fare can be paid for in New York. new.mta.info/guides/riding-the-bus Amongst the options listed: “With exact change in coins 1. Board via the front door. 2. Insert exact change into the farebox.” Now you might be thinking that this is a relatively new innovation, insisting on cash being paid in exact fares being a step in the direction of th....

This sign is in the window of a retailer in the small but bustling town of Callandar in Scotland. The retailer prefers cash - and makes clear the reasons why. The last bank branch in this town will close in November 2024 - and no “bank hub” is to be provided. Towards the end of the notice you will read that this retailer believes that if businesses take more cash and deposit it via ....

Payment Choice Alliance spokesperson Ron Delnevo speaks to Peter Levy on BBC Look North about why everyone in Yorkshire and the whole UK deserves Payment Choice. Source: [link]

Revolut is a phenomenal success story. The Big Five UK banks are losing a lot of business to Revolut - and that trend is likely to gather pace. A few weeks ago, Revolut confirmed that over 70% of their business customers made cash deposits. However, there are severe restrictions, imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), as to the amount of cash that can be deposited. Here is how Revol....

Another crack appears in the “cashless” assault on the British public. Black Sheep Coffee has been “cashless” since they started operating in 2013. They have been named & shamed by the Payment Choice Alliance and severely criticised by customers - but they seemed not to be listening. But, finally, they have seen sense. Look carefully in the bottom right hand corner ....

Thanks to Callum Mason at iNews for highlighting this very important issue. Domestic abuse is a huge and growing problem. There is absolutely no doubt that cash can provide an escape route for victims of abuse, including by not allowing abusers to track their victims. Charities such as Refuge are doing wonderful work, supporting victims of domestic violence, as are Relationship Coaches like Mari....

Great to see Pooja Shrivastava at Asian Trader getting this important story out so quickly. 81% of British adults believe the option to use cash is important. Cash is NOT a fringe issue! Well done to LINK Scheme Ltd for producing this crucial research, highlighting that that vast majority of the British public WANT to be able to use cash. This contrasts with the rather smaller number of people ....

Poor cash access and unreliable internet services are killing trade for small businesses in THOUSANDS of communities around the UK. Sandbach in Cheshire is just one sad example. However, when the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) say that all of this must be put right “ to enable small firms to continue to accept cash if they wish to “, they are placing the wishes of their members....

It’s good to see the BBC News highlighting such stories of “cashless” folly. What do Middlesbrough Council think they are up to? A “significant reduction in demand” led them to close their cash office? The reality? Some officious Bean Counter in the Council, who probably uses an app to advise on underwear changes, thinks that “progress” is imposing &ldqu....

Teignmouth has a population of 15,000 - and is yet another town left without any bank branches. Cash Access UK say that they have put a temporary “Bank Hub” in the Post Office, a Post Office that is open only half day Saturday and is closed on Sundays. There is now only one free-to-use ATM in Teignmouth Town Centre - and the permanent “Bank Hub”, when it finally opens, is....

On 12 August, the change to “cashless” Railway Station Car Parking in Kent - this “progress” - was inevitably going to be imposed by Southeastern Railway on 19 August. Then it was stopped. One strong letter to a Government Minister from the Payment Choice Alliance meant that “cashless” hit the buffers! Those - the Majority of us - who refuse to accept the impo....

Wendy Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, is absolutely correct. On 18 September, more than six years after Natalie Ceeney and her team started work on their “Access to Cash Review”, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules come into force regarding banks assessing the impact of future branch closures BEFORE closing the branches - and, potentially, keeping branche....

Interesting figures from Post Office Ltd Only £900 million of the £3.7 billion of British post office cash activity in July 2024 was cash withdrawals. The rest was business and personal cash deposits. Underlines the lack of deposit alternatives for the British public and businesses. That said, with the value of ATM transactions resilient, despite the continuing reduction in the UK A....

Our Chair, Ron Delnevo, was on Radio Kent at 7.20AM on 12 August, talking to Anna Cookson about the disgraceful decision of Southeastern Railway to impose “cashless” parking on Railway Stations in Kent. Let’s hope Steve White, MD of Southeastern Railway, got the wake up call! Steve takes over £1 million EVERY day in taxpayers subsidy and then goes completely off the rails ....

A classic situation. Towns in Oxfordshire starved of cash access and also some businesses refusing to accept cash. Witney still has bank branches but, with a population of only 30,000, is unlikely to keep them. The cash access measures outlined recently by the Financial Conduct Authority are clearly inadequate. Equally, the fact that no measures have so far been taken to guarantee cash acceptan....

"Many older people, those who live and work in rural areas, and thousands of small businesses rely and still feel comfortable using cash and that is why it is not going to be going anywhere soon.” Here we go again. This time it’s a former Conservative Peer Lord Kulveer Ranger trying to convince us that cash is only of marginal interest and that we are all on a journey towards an inev....

It is not just churches suffering; many venues lose out if there are no cash donations. We saw recently at the Roman Baths in Bath; the “cashless” Wishing Well lost 90% of the previous donations. People should STOP making the excuse “I don’t carry cash” for not making donations to good causes. Such people are simply being THOUGHTLESS and MEAN - and that’s thei....

Three interesting aspects to this article. Firstly, this quote “UK Finance says 22million adults are 'primarily cashless.'” Next week, the Payment Choice Alliance will be writing to Chancellor Rachel Reeves to ask her to intervene to stop UK Finance from making such statements. “Primarily Cashless” is a contradiction in terms. A person is either “cashless&....

A busy week for Payment Choice Alliance Chair Ron Delnevo. Ron was on Ian Collins TalkTV show, talking about all things cash, including why the British public will not accept “cashless” being imposed on them. Ron was also on a Phone In on BBC Radio Scotland, on John Beattie’s “Mornings” Show. The vast majority of those who phoned in were strong supporters of cash as....

Revolut, when it surveyed its sophisticated digitally- skilled UK customers, found that 71% had deposited cash with a bank or other financial institution in the last year, as well as 34% wanted a feature to be able to deposit cash monthly. These figures are STAGGERING. Remember, this is in the UK, which, so the story goes, is almost ready to go “cashless”. Within 24 hours of Revolut ....

Unbelievable! Who would ever have thought? Another IT outage creates total havoc! Meantime…. Cash ALWAYS works. Cash NEVER crashes. In cash, we trust…for 2500 years and counting! Source: telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/cashless-meltdown-waitrose-gails-bakery-it-outage

Some “experts” are claiming “this is very unlikely to ever happen again”. Lightning never strikes twice,eh? Except, on average, the Empire State Building in New York is struck by lightning 25 times each year. So, of course, such an outage WILL happen again, due to human error - and, when hostile governments employ hackers to deliberately destabilise societies they don&rsq....

This excellent article by James Tapper and Gaby Eretuyan at The Observer, highlights the perils of a “cashless” society. CrowdStrike are just the latest software provider to demonstrate that totally relying on leading edge technology is as sensible as using a lemming as your mountain guide… The UK is an outlier in that the British public have no legal right to have their cash ....

So far, only 146 “Banking Hubs” have been recommended by LINK, less than 10% of the bank branch closures they have reviewed since 1 January 2022. Cash Access UK claim they hope to have 200 “Banking Hubs” open by the end of 2025. Since only 146 “Banking Hubs” have been recommended to date and, taking account of LINKs strike rate of under 10%, to achieve the addi....

A quote from this excellent article by Peter Hitchens at the Daily Mail “It is time for a campaign to make everyone accept cash again.” The great news for Peter - and everyone else who wants to use cash - is that such a campaign already exists! The Payment Choice Alliance, working on behalf of the 40 Million British adults who want the legal right to use their cash, when and where th....

A former employee of the Australian Taxation Office has the cheek to comment in this article “ ..and consumers are starting to look a bit suspiciously at those businesses that are now only taking cash or offering cash discounts.” How wrong can one man be?! The public LOVE discounts for paying in cash. Businesses around the world have offered such discounts for decades and it is wond....

The HUGE majority the new Labour government has in the Westminster Parliament will allow the government to deliver what the British public wants. And automatic cash acceptance is something 71% of UK adults have told YouGov that they want. That equates to 40 million people who require the legal right to use their cash - their £ - when and where they choose. The necessary legal measure is c....

Very good article from Jordyn Beazley in the Guardian Australia, who tested whether a whole weekends spending could be managed only using cash. Jordyn’s verdict? “I managed to use cash without any hiccups, and hopefully it stays that way.” Unfortunately, it won’t. In countries where they can get away with it, an increasing number of businesses are imposing “cashle....

There’s the stark reality denied by those trying to impose “cashless” on the UK. People do NOT give nearly as much when “contactless” is the only option. It is disgraceful that a Liberal Democrat’s dominated council - Bath & North East Somerset Council - is robbing local residents and the millions of tourists who visit the area every year of Payment Choice....

Whether or not there are ANY plausible benefits to the Eurozone having a Digital Euro, substituting for cash is NOT one of them. Cash has unique qualities that no solution containing the word DIGITAL can ever replicate! Source: irishtimes.com/business/2024/06/25/a-digital-euro-would-combine-the-convenience-of-online-payments-with-cash-like-features