(Sharecast News) – One in three people have had payments refused and have been unable to pay in cash since the start of the pandemic, shows Which?.
People were most likely to be refused the option of paying in cash when buying groceries, which accounted for 28% of incidents, our survey of 2,004 people in November 2020 found.
This was followed by paying for leisure activities such as going to a pub or restaurant (24%) and buying cleaning products (21%).
According to Which? some 13% of respondents, equivalent to seven million people, said that they regularly use cash and would struggle without it.
Another 5% of people said that they depend on cash and would not be able to do the things they need to do without it. This equates to more than two and a half million people.
In general, people have been switching to card payments instead of cash. Around 53% of people said they had replaced some or all of their cash use since the first lockdown.
Which? said mixed messages about the safety of handling cash was partly to blame.
The consumer advisory group wants the government to track the number of businesses that have scrapped cash over the past year, warning that the trend could undermine the Treasury’s efforts to keep cash from disappearing.
Which? money editor, Jenny Ross, said the government “must urgently make the FCA responsible for tracking cash acceptance levels. Failure to do so will see the cash network crumble and leave millions of people abandoned.”
