High streets could become completely cash-free by 2025 as Brits throw away whopping £20million in small change yearly
HIGH streets could be cash-free by 2025 – with many of us already BINNING small change.
We increasingly pay with card or phone, while cashless stores say profits are booming.
A report from Anglian Ruskin University found eight per cent of small coins, worth £20million, are thrown away a year. Simply producing and distributing cash costs the Treasury. And that cost will increase as we use less of it.
With transactions predicted to fall by up to two-thirds in the coming decade, it is thought that just to keep notes in circulation will require £1 in every £10 spent to sustain it. Supplies of 1p and 2p coins are dwindling. Forty years ago, the Royal Mint made 1.5billion a year. Last year it didn’t produce a single one.
High-street expert Mark Pilkington predicted: “Within five years we’ll see cash-free high streets, particularly in city centres.”
Retail Champion founder Clare Bailey added: “I’d be surprised if we haven’t got our first by 2025.”
Businesses that don’t take cash say they are coining it in. Guat’s Up, a cafe in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, went card-only in August.Owner Rob Butterworth said: “Our card takings are much higher than when we opened three years ago. This will be the norm in a couple of years.”
Boozer The Freston Boot, in Ipswich, outlawed coins a year ago. Landlord Damon Jeffrey said: “Business is booming and profits are up.” Bookseller Blackwell’s is cash-free at its Nottingham Trent uni branch. Spokesman Phil Henderson said: “We are always looking at ways to use technology to serve customers better.”
And Tesco has a cashless shop at its offices in Welwyn Garden City, Herts. A spokesman there said: “Half of transactions in our stores are cash-free and we see the trend continuing.”
Latest figures show there were 11.5billion fewer cash payments in 2018 than 2008 — a 51 per cent drop.
Ten years ago, two-thirds of payments were by cash. Now it is just a third and by 2025 it is tipped to fall to one in five. Only Canada and Sweden rely on cash less than Britain. People aged 25 to 34 are less likely to use cash than older shoppers.
MOST READ IN MONEY
Meanwhile, free-to-use cashpoints are closing at a rate of 600 a month and more than a third of all bank branches have shut their doors in the past five years.
Gareth Shaw, head of money at consumer mag Which?, said: “More than eight million adults would struggle to cope in a cashless society.
“The Government should bring in laws to ensure cash is protected and available for as long as it is needed.”
- GOT a story? Ring The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or email [email protected].