Support Your Local – Pay Cash

By Frane Maroevic, Director General, International Currency Association

The next time you pop into your favourite coffee shop, grab that fresh pastry, or pick up your sandwich, pause before you reach for your card. Look at the person serving you, and ask yourself: how much of what I’m about to spend actually makes it into their hands?

Every card payment isn’t just a quick tap or swipe. It’s a slice taken out of your local shopkeeper’s earnings. Those “tiny” percentages disappear, transaction after transaction, year after year.

The Hidden Math Behind Every Tap

Just consider: a 3% processing fee, compounded over 23 payments, halves the money the person behind the counter receives. That means if you spend €50 in small card payments, by the 23rd transaction, only €25 is left for the shopkeeper. Small percentages really do add up.

For a small business operating on tiny margins, these fees are a big deal. Over a year, they can easily add up to the cost of hiring another person. A real job for someone in your community, a family supported, and a more vibrant high street.

Card fees don’t offer better coffee, fresher bread, or friendlier faces. Those lost euros leave your neighbourhood behind and boost the profits of multinational corporations, not the people who make your local life better.

In a recent UK tribunal ruling, these card transaction fees were found to violate competition law (https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/mastercard-visas-merchant-fees-breach-competition-law-uk-tribunal-rules-2025-06-27/). They never served local businesses; they were just another way for big corporations to squeeze out small proprietors.

The Real Power of Cash

Paying in cash isn’t about rejecting technology. It’s about making contact with people, about keeping every possible cent local, and about making sure your baker, grocer, and barista see the true reward of their hard work.

• Every coin spent in cash goes directly to local people.
• Every note helps pay wages, buys the next bag of coffee, and keeps community shops open for one more day.

Local businesses do more than make life convenient; they make your neighbourhood meaningful. It brings to mind the theme from the 1980s TV series Cheers:

“Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came...”

Local shops not only remember your name, your order, and your story. They are your community, and they deserve to keep the money you pay them and not watch it vanish in a blur of card processing fees.

So next time you pay, smile and turn contactless into contact.

Because with cash, you’re not just making a transaction, you’re making a difference.