Last week, people missed flights and couldn’t pay with their cards at many stores. The CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity systems outage on Windows servers also affected electronic payment systems. In light of this chaos, remember all the hubbub about cash having to disappear?
We only accept cash. According to The Guardian, several supermarkets, bars, cafes, train stations, and airports were affected by the severe CrowdStrike vulnerability last Friday, especially those who only accepted credit card payments.
The glitch affected several countries worldwide. In Spain, for example, Bizum, a payments service used by banks similar to Zelle, warned last Friday there could be problems with its payment systems. In the end, nothing happened, although, as some Spanish media outlets reported, other companies did have issues. Still, they were only temporary.
Not having alternatives is a mistake. In the UK, the Payment Choice Alliance (PCA), which campaigns against the move to a cashless society, pointed out how this kind of situation shows that there’s still value in continuing to support cash payments. “There will always be outages,” PCA director Ron Delnevo explained, “but if there is no alternative, then the whole thing can collapse around you.”
Laws that prohibit eradicating cash. The U.S. and other countries like China have fined certain businesses for not accepting cash. States like New Jersey and Massachusetts have state laws that ban businesses from refusing cash as a payment, though no national legislation exists.
A bipartisan coalition introduced a bill in 2023 that would force businesses to accept cash as a payment option for sales of $500 or less and would ban retailers from charging cash-paying customers a premium for choosing to pay with paper money.
“Every American should have the right to pay in cash,” Rep. Donald M. Payne Jr, D-New Jersey, who died of a heart attack earlier this year, said in a statement in June 2023. “There are too many stores and businesses that want to reject it in favor of digital payments.
Delnevo, the PCA director, said the UK should pass a law requiring all businesses to accept cash.
The European Central Bank recently defended the creation of the digital euro but also stressed that it would preserve “paper” money without “displacing private money.”
Anonymity. PCA campaign director Martin Quinn also explained how cash payments also allow for payment anonymity. “I don’t want my data sold on, and I don’t want banks, credit card companies, and even online retailers to know every facet of my life.”
This article was written by Javier Pastor and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
Image | Omid Armin
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