Cash is ‘hugely important to the UK economy’, serving as a reliable, proven way to exchange value that supports inclusion, privacy and choice, as explored in a recent Financial Times article.
Writing for FT Adviser, finance journalist Stephanie Hawthorne opens with the observation that in the past five years, almost 15,000 cash machines have been removed and over two thousand bank branches have closed. Not only is this limiting the accessibility of cash, she argues, it’s also damaging the high streets. When people came to a high street to bank, they visited businesses in the area, and ‘a prosperous high street means a prosperous back street.’ Without bank branches, people have less reason to visit the high street and related businesses, and this effect trickles down through local economies.
The immediacy of cash and its lack of associated charges (such as ‘swipe fees’ for using credit and debit cards) also benefits small businesses and informal economies in which people on very low incomes depend on work done for cash in hand.
