News Archive 2025

PCA Chair Ron Delnevo was delighted to talk to the BBC again about all things cash and payment choice. One important issue discussed was the fact that the Financial Conduct Authority had found via a survey that 76% of consumers thought the contactless limit should be the current £100 limit or lower, yet the FCA had decided in its “wisdom” to remove the limit entirely from March ....

The Council of Europe is intent on strengthening the role of cash in Europe. The telling quote: “….the Council indicates its wish to effectively ban non-acceptance of cash by retailers or service providers…”. Meantime, in the UK, work on the “National Payments Vision” has deliberately excluded proper consideration of cash. Starting on 5 January 2026, the Pa....

At a recent meeting with the Financial Conduct Authority, the PCA told them that they should be stopping organisations publishing data deliberately underplaying the use of cash in the UK to further the cause of those trying to impose “cashless” on the British public. Here’s the AI answer to the question - What percentage of sales in the UK are in cash? “Cash Transactions (....

Lloyds Banking Group is closing the last bank branch in Okehampton in March 2026. The population of the Okehampton built-up area was 9,112 in the 2021 UK Census, having risen from 7,647 in 2011 - around a 20% increase - making it a growing market town, nestled by the Dartmoor National Park in Devon. A growing market town that will have lost ALL four of its bank branches when Lloyd’s desert ....

For Hedon - population of around 8000 - to receive a “Banking Hub”, Cash Access UK, would need to intend to open at least 700 such Hubs. They don’t. They intend to open 350 by 2029, which is the absurdly low number Cash Access UK has promised the Labour Government. The four banks that own and fund Cash Access UK - the Big 5 minus Santander - do not want to spend the money crea....

This restaurant chain first opened for business in Lewes in Surrey in 2000. Founded by farmers son Bill Collison as a store to sell farm produce, a cafe was soon added. It was great. The original cafe/greengrocer offered great food and a delightful ambience. Now Bill's Restaurants operate over 40 sites around the country. And they have, sadly, lost their way. That first site, of course, ....

A telling quote from New Zealand: “Small firms are especially exposed, with 72% of New Zealand’s small businesses saying they’d be adversely affected if cash stopped being an option.” Why is the Bank of England not asking the same questions AND publicising the responses in the UK? Why is it being left to anti-cash elements in the UK financial services industry to continu....

The provisions of new law cash access law in Ireland are inadequate - an up to 20 kilometre round trip to get cash is NOT convenient access to cash. However, where it is vastly better than the nonsense inflicted on the British public by HM Treasury is that the law actually mentions ATMs! In a now infamous statement on “reasonable” cash access issued in 2023 by HM Treasury, there was ....

Now the Irish Government is joining so many others around Europe in urging citizens to keep cash at home to deal with inevitable - and frequent - “Digital Downtime”. Meantime, all we hear about in the UK ( usually sponsored by Mastercard ) is how “EVERYONE ” is going to be “Digitally Included”, whether they WANT to be or NOT. Let’s just call it for what ....

The idea that the The Payments Association and Mastercard have the faintest clue about “Delivering the UK’s Financial Inclusion Strategy” is quite simply risible. Even though they are prepared to devote one whole hour of a pre-Christmas webinar to the subject. Mastercard, who announced their “war on cash” in 2010, have done a great job for their shareholders - but Z....

This article says Norfolk has lost 30% of its ATMs since 2019. In reality, going back only one year further - to when UK ATM numbers peaked - reveals an even worse picture. 40% of the free ATMs in the UK have been ripped out since 1 January 2018 - that’s 20,000 Cash Machines! Here’s a quote which explains why this issue isn’t being properly addressed: “Link, which overs....

BRILLIANT news from Nationwide Building Society! No branches to close until at least 2030! It’s not just their advertising that is embarrassing the Big Five High Street(?) banks - look at this statistic! “Nationwide branches remain popular, with 11% increase in customers using them over last year”. What established retailer in the UK can claim such an increase in customers us....

A nineteen page document “Strategy for Future Retail Payments Infrastructure” has just been released by The Payments Vision Delivery Committee ( “the Committee”) The Committee comprised Bank of England, HM Treasury, Financial Conduct Authority and Payment Systems Regulator geeks. In this document, cash is mentioned just once: “More widely, access to cash remains vi....

“Honesty boxes should be dying like cash.” Such headlines are really becoming tiresome. As our Chair Ron Delnevo told a meeting at the Financial Conduct Authority recently, the big problem in the UK is that media is fed a continuous stream of anti-cash propaganda by a number of organisations closely associated with the dominant players in UK Financial Services. There is even a quite....

The sign in the photograph is in one of the car parks adjacent to Stockport Railway Station. All of the car parks near this station seem to be operated by National Car Parks, though the sites may in some cases be owned by the local authority. It is now impossible to pay for parking at this busy station using cash, with frightening consequences for societal exclusion. Let’s be frank. This....

Pennies are being phased out in the United States - BUT this change is NOT being used by McDonald's as an excuse for imposing “cashless”. Well done to them! Meantime, British companies such as Warner Hotels have the cheek to impose “cashless”, pretending it is something customers WANT! 88% of British adults responded to a recent survey that they WANT to retain the o....

Keir Starmer saw his digital “Government Gateway” go down last week. Sunk without trace for a while because it was dependent on Amazon - and it stopped flowing! Are you watching, HM Treasury ? Your “National Payments Vision”, relying entirely on digital, is in tatters before it is even published. Cash ALWAYS works - and has done in Britain for 2100 years. Cash is NOT a p....

Some interesting figures in this article in The Times The claim from HM Revenue & Customs is that the British public paying cash-in-hand is costing the British Government £2.3 Billion a year in tax revenue. VAT is at 20%. So if £2.3 Billion in VAT is being lost, it would imply that payments of £11.5 Billion are being made in cash each year to avoid VAT. Around £130 Bi....

Lucy Rigby KC MP, who is a Minister at HM Treasury, is at it again in this article, saying The Labour Party Government does not plan to introduce legislation to compel UK businesses to accept cash. THEN BEST CHANGE YOUR PLAN, LUCY! Every one of our European neighbours already have laws or constitutional measures in place, mandating the publics right to use cash and rejecting the frankly bizarre....

Utterly thoughtless rubbish here. There is absolutely no justification for Stagecoach Group Limited - or any other bus operator - to go “cashless”. New York introduced a no-change system, where cash is dropped into a hopper by boarding passengers, on buses in 1969 - yes, before Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon - and still accept cash today, in 2025. Edinburgh Buses - the UK’s....

There is an ongoing campaign to stigmatise cash and those who use it. A charity participating in this campaign is Crimestoppers Trust They highlight the “dangers” of cash-only businesses and ask the public to look out for “individuals displaying unexplained wealth or expensive lifestyles” and using “high-value bank notes”. In fact, the UK does not have any &ld....

In December 2017, LINK Scheme Ltd created a “World First” when announcing that there were too many ATMs in the UK. LINK - ultimately beholding to the big banks - stated that this was costing those banks “a fortune”. Leicester Town Centre was highlighted as the location most over supplied with ATMs. LINK said they would reduce payments to ATM operators so that major cit....

What a timely story from Australia, highlighting how an Australian post office is “begging” the public to deposit cash to safeguard the ability of the post office to offer cash withdrawals. The last bank branch in Queenstown had closed the week before. Timely because the Financial Conduct Authority is holding a review next week of what is happening to access to cash in the UK. The PC....

You have to admit that the “cashless” brigade keep on trying. They fund a massive French PR agency Havas to orchestrate their attempts to push the UK towards “cashless”. This enables them to obtain media coverage for nonsense. Ironically, Havas couldn’t run the same anti Public Interest campaign in France, because “cashless” is BANNED by law in France, ....

Only 75% of UK adults use mobile banking, despite the fact that 93% of them could ( because they have smartphones). That means that around 10 million adults are choosing NOT to use mobile banking, despite all the hype of the financial services industry, orchestrated by UK Finance and French PR giant Havas. It is wonderful that so many members of the British public can exercise their personal fre....

This is NOT protecting access to cash - its little more than window dressing! LINK have done 1173 “assessments” of communities left without banks in one year and only “recommended” 86 Banking Hubs! Which means in only 7% of cases are communities getting Banking Hubs. This is NOT properly protecting access to cash - it’s little more than Window Dressing! Why is thi....

Absolutely brilliant research work by the European Central Bank on the enduring importance of cash. The Bank of England will be viewing this research with envy - and great interest. I love this quote: “This crisis-driven demand for cash stems from its fundamental attributes: it offers distinct psychological and practical utility, explaining its well-documented global staying power.” ....

What a terrible “process” to get a Banking Hub. A MP bumps into the CEO of LINK Scheme Ltd at a “do” in Parliament, one thing leads to another - and Golspie, a town with a population of only 1300, secures a “review” of “access to cash”. Best word to describe this? FARCE. When YouGov conducted a survey of MPs recently, they found that 98% of MP&rs....

A cash-only ice cream kiosk in a threatre. Who would use that - according to LINK ATM Scheme, few people carry wallets anymore so how can they carry cash? Oddly, not a problem at the Alhambra Theatre in Dunfermline last week, where everyone seemed delighted to use cash to get their delicious Lucas Ice Cream. After exhaustive research on-premises, it was found that even those who did not carry w....

This quote exposes the terrible inadequacies of the current review system in relation to cash access: “The requirements the body LINK Scheme Ltd recommended the new service should have include a free deposit and cash withdrawal service for personal accounts and businesses, allow for a mix of coins and notes to be deposited and withdrawn, and be open for a MINIMUM OF THREE DAYS FOR FIVE HOUR....