In the USA, 83% of small business owners say they will always accept cash (Square, 2019)
Jun 3, 2019
The San Francisco-based financial services company published this report about the ever-changing payments culture in the USA with a focus on cash use between 2015 and 2019.
Eighty-three percent of small business owners across the U.S. say they will never stop accepting cash, according to new third-party research of 1,000 small business owners across the U.S., conducted by Wakefield Research and commissioned by Square.
The San Francisco-based financial services company published this report about the ever-changing payments culture in the USA over the last five years, with a focus on cash.
Key findings include
- 10% of Square sellers across the U.S. are “cashless.”
- Consumers at Square businesses paid with cash for only 37% of transactions under $20 in 2019.
- 83% of U.S. small business owners say they will never stop accepting cash.
- 2 in 3 small business owners say their customers would react negatively if they went to a cashless business model.
"I don't think it's fair for someone to not be able to purchase something because they don't have a bank account, [....] If you want to pay in cash, pay in cash. If you want to pay in credit, pay in credit."
Excerpt
The data for this analysis includes millions of transactions from January 2014 to March 2019 from nearly 100,000 Square sellers across the U.S. who have accepted a minimum threshold of cash and card payments. We supplemented Square transaction data with self-reported survey data from a random sample of 2,400 sellers in March 2019.
In addition to Square seller metrics, Square commissioned a survey in March 2019 of 1,000 U.S. small business owners (excluding franchise owners), conducted by Wakefield Research. Quotas have been set for ~80% urban respondents. The small business owners surveyed represent a payment-process or agnostic cohort, not limited to Square.
