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The Treasury Committee’s warning that businesses may soon be forced to accept coins and banknotes could not be more timely. Without intervention, millions who still rely on physical money will be left behind. Age UK rightly calls the decline of cash acceptance a form of social exclusion. For many older people, being cut off from cash and face-to-face banking services is not just inconvenient, it’s deeply isolating.
Before the pandemic, around 2.4 million over-65s heavily relied on cash, using it for nearly all their transactions. For them, cash is not a preference; it’s a necessity. But it’s not only the elderly who will suffer. People on lower incomes use cash to budget and manage their spending. Small charities, buskers, and community stalls still depend on coins and notes.
And for anyone vulnerable and concerned with privacy, such as victims of economic abuse, digital-only systems may be a troubling prospect.
Besides, in a nation increasingly riddled with defaulting technology, is it really wise to kill off cash now? At least 158 banking IT outages occurred between January 2023 and February 2025.
Just last month, Barclays was asked to pay up to a staggering £12.5million in compensation for two years of outages – the most recent of which coincided with this January’s payday.
The Government has a duty to ensure no one is left behind. If businesses won’t voluntarily accept cash, regulation should be enforced.
Protecting cash is not about resisting progress; it’s our currency. That’s something that too many businesses aren’t understanding. And in a digital future that isn’t yet stable, cash should remain an option.
