Cash Gives Money Meaning

Writing for Guardian Australia, culture and lifestyle editor Celina Ribeiro examines the impact of cashless spending on people’s perception of money, the required trade-off of privacy for convenience, and the importance of cash to inclusion and security.

Firstly, Ribeiro highlights the continued popularity of banknotes as a store of wealth. ‘Australia is awash with cash’, with the Reserve Bank saying that, for every one citizen, there are 18 $100 notes and 38 $50 notes in circulation.

Cash offers comfort and reassurance, explains economic anthropologist Dr Chris Vasantkumar of Macquarie University. It also supports monetary stability, he says, with countries such as Nigeria and India experiencing rapid shifts towards cashless policies that have shaken confidence in money and the economy.

There are also those for whom cash is not a choice, but a necessity for interacting with the economy. Australia has a relatively low unbanked population, however a report from the Center for Financial Inclusion found over three million adults lacked access to safe, affordable financial products and services. Additionally, those living in rural areas may have patchy internet access that makes cashless payments unreliable.

Steve Worthington, Professor of Financial Services at Swinburne University of Technology, says that for many, cash is essential to daily life.

Ribeiro points to Sweden—widely considered a cashless pioneer—where some of its cashless policies needed to be walked back to reverse damage done to ‘people who had fared badly in the shift.’

For these reasons, Worthington argues cash must be protected ‘as a public good, like water or electricity.’ Vasantkumar adds that cash is key to public infrastructure, tied to the value of money—and people’s perception of it—underpinning the economy and acting as a vital backup when cashless options are unavailable, such as during power cuts or internet outages.