Cash Balances Innovation and Inclusion

Atlanta City Councilmember Antonio Lewis has announced his intention to work with state lawmakers to ban cashless businesses across Georgia, seeking a balance of innovation and inclusion in payments that will ensure they serve every corner of society.

Speaking to WABE—an independent, non-profit source of local stories in Atlanta—Lewis states that he respects the decisions of business owners to transact in the ways that suit them, but points out that cash is by nature the most universal, given it is usable by anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Figures from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation show 6.7 percent of Georgian households are unbanked, meaning no one in the household has a checking or savings account with a bank or credit union. Black and Hispanic households are more likely to fall into this category than their white counterparts.

In addition to requiring a bank account, cashless payments may be inaccessible to people due to their age—being either very young or very old—credit rating, lack of internet access and many other factors that often disproportionately affect disadvantaged members of society.

There is considerable precedent for Lewis’s proposal for the introduction of legislation protecting cash and payment choice. It is already illegal for businesses not to accept cash in states including Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Michigan, Mississippi and New York, and cities such as Washington D.C., Chicago and Philadelphia. Los Angeles is the among recent jurisdictions to consider a cashless ban, and a bipartisan bill was reintroduced to the US Senate in July of this year, aiming to prohibit businesses nationwide from refusing cash payments, or charging a higher price to use cash.