Cash Clash: Australian Businesses Face Boycotts Over Cashless Policies

Cashless businesses in Australia are being boycotted by groups arguing that a refusal to accept cash infringes personal rights and people’s freedom of choice.

ABC News reports on a growing number of groups—such as Call Out Cashless Businesses, a Facebook group with around 22,000 members—that are encouraging people to ‘vote with their feet’ and withhold their business from companies that will not take cash alongside other payment options.

Mike Palmer, who created the Facebook Group, is hoping this and similar initiatives will exert pressure on businesses to give people complete payment choice.

A recent consumer payments survey published by the Reserve Bank of Australia shows currently around 13 percent of transactions across the nation are made using cash. While this is less than half the figure in its 2019 survey—when cash use stood at 27 percent—it demonstrates that cash continues to be used for some one in ten payments, with people on lower incomes and older consumers especially likely to use it.

While many among younger generations are turning to cash to help them take control of stretched budgets, others choose it for the privacy it offers, or to avoid transaction fees associated with cards and other options. Ultimately—in addition to being essential for individuals excluded from banking systems—cash represents a different way to pay that offers unique advantages, and provides a vital backup for occasions when cashless options are inaccessible (for example due to a forgotten password) or unavailable (when company systems fail, or electricity and internet services go down).

Chrissie Maus, Chief Executive Officer of the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce in Western Australia, says businesses everywhere need to think carefully before going cashless.