To wonder why so many people don't carry any cash on them?

[InHibernationTilISummer]

Excluding people who are skint and the Queen, obviously.

I've had so many examples of this in the last few weeks:

• Colleague who came into the work in the bad weather. Lots of delays and problems on the bus route they normally get so wanted to get the train instead but had no money for a ticket because they had come in with their season bus pass and lunch and hadn't expected to be spending any money.
• Friend turning up for exercise class but hasn't realised that the price has gone up 50p since she last came - and she only brought the exact money she thought she would need.
• Another friend dropping older child off at sport class finds that there's a fair going on at the sports centre with stalls and activities that her younger child (who was with her) would have enjoyed. Complains that she wishes she had known about it in advance as she would have taken some money out with her.

Is this becoming more common or is it just the people I know? If you aren't skint but don't routinely carry money on you, why is that?

I've been in situations where I haven't expected to be spending any (or much) money and some problem has occurred or plans have changed for some reason (e.g. having to accompany someone to A & E or the last bus not turning up) and I would have been really stuck if I hadn't taken some spare 'emergency' cash.

I'm not sure you know what argument I'm having.

If the UK is cashless in ten years I'll eat all my debit cards and my phone as well!

FFS I think when I get to the point that young people think I should no longer be allowed out alone because I can't use new technology, I will just top myself.

I don't think it'll be completely cashless in just ten years. But it will within the next few decades absolutely.

We currently use cash for a third of the transactions we did just ten years ago. Back then 61% of transactions were made with cash, now its 21%.

It's never going to increase. Perhaps it might hit 5% then plateau for a while, or indefinitely. But I'll be surprised if I see anyone using cash in twenty years time for something they could use care and other digital methods for.

You've not understood. The 1.5 million is people who want accounts but can't have them. If you add all the people who don't have them for other reasons its much higher

Really?

Well I've just registered with my city's favoured parking app. What a fucking PITA that was, but at least I did it from the comfort of my own home instead of standing in the rain reading info off a parking meter when I'm in a rush. I don't know why it needed to know my date of birth or gender or whether they actually mean gender or sex and why it matters for the purposes of paying for parking.

No doubt when I actually come to use it, it will have logged me out of the app because I haven't used it in the last 4 hours and I won't be able to reset the password that it chose because I don't know what it is. And if I do use it, I will be very annoyed by the illegal 'convenience fee' even if it it only 25p, because I'm financially aware enough to realise that if someone nicks 25 p off everyone, everyday, it adds up to millions over time.

Her hands shakes very badly, much worse than that guy you posted about
Link the voiceitt app to her mobile banking app. All she will have to do is say pay and hold out her phone which you can have in an arm sleeve.

Technology enables people to be independent.

I don't think the UK will be completely cashless in my lifetime but probably for the next generation, a bit like electric cars will be the things of the future.

Luckily where I go is free parking at the moment as I would not be wanting to pay that extra 25p on principle, I noticed a shopping centre I rarely use had a surcharge for phone payment WTF, but last time I went you could still pay with cash

All she will have to do is say pay and hold out her phone which you can have in an arm sleeve

Plenty of people aren't comfortable carrying out banking transactions within earshot of others, or don't have good enough hearing to understand an electronic voice in a noisy environment.

Total and unquestioning dependence on mobiles, especially for financial transactions is worrying. Lose it or have it stolen and people will be contactless wiring themselves 29.99 here, there and everywhere until you notice and report it missing. Not all phones have fingerprint security and pins can easily be observed or hacked.

I gave 50p to a busker today.
£5 to DS who needed to buy a revision guide at school (they don't accept payment by other methods).
Bought something in Primark for £4. Could have gone contactless but I knew I might have to return, and most shops are much better at cash returns than on card.

limon My late gran, who died in 2006 at 93, never had a bank account, paid everything by cash, and I had to talk very hard to the pension people to get them to pay it to a PO card account (like I used for CB). Nana never learnt to drive, never had a TV, microwave or automatic washing machine. It took my Dad years to persuade her to have a landline installed.

She was very content with her life, and didn't see the need for any of the above bits of domestic hardware, let alone using any tech at all.

Plenty of people aren't comfortable carrying out banking transactions within earshot of others, or don't have good enough hearing to understand an electronic voice in a noisy environment

You don't have to hear anything? Handing over cash is a lot less secure.

I have never in the 24 years I've had mobiles lost it or had it stolen. If they did they couldn't access it anyway.

All she will have to do is say pay and hold out her phone which you can have in an arm sleeve

Unless of course she lives in an area of crappy phone coverage, of which there are many.

DS broke one of my phones in a fury (sigh).
I routinely lose things like keys & wallet. Probably haven't lost a phone only coz I barely use it.

Unless of course she lives in an area of crappy phone coverage

Why would this matter for making a contactless payment?

Unless of course she lives in an area of crappy phone coverage, of which there are many.

Such as underground stations. Which is why contactless payment using mobile phones doesn't work on underground ticket barrier.

Oh, hang on, it does. Because - and this is why I accuse the luddites of bad faith, because they don't even understand the criticisms they are blindly repeating and assume everyone else is as uninfomed as they are - contactless payment doesn't require the mobile phone to have any sort of internet connectivity. The phone is just acting as a card, that's all.

Not all phones have fingerprint security

In Apple Land, the ones without fingerprint readers or facial recognition don't support Apple Pay. I believe it's slightly more relaxed in Android land.

pins can easily be observed or hacked.

Can they? In the case of "observed", we're now outside the land of "lost your phone" and into the land of "had your transaction observed by an attacker who subsequently targets you and steals your phone". Why wouldn't that attacker steal your case, given we've progressed to direct street crime? In the case of "hacked", "[citation needed]". How would you embark upon the "hacking" of a PIN on a typical mobile phone? Be as technical as you like: I can keep up.

contactless payment doesn't require the mobile phone to have any sort of internet connectivity.

Oh that's weird. People using cards on my trainline often can't pay in our local blackspot. The guards end up having a rant and have to come back to find the would-be buyer later. Maybe the train-ticket-device can't do contactless? I dunno. Not my problem. I pay cash!

People using cards on my trainline often can't pay in our local blackspot

That should not happen and I have never seen it happen. The terminal has an off line mode and the card/phone uses NFC technology.

Maybe the train-ticket-device can't do contactless?

It's possible their device won't take the payment without a connection, but that's down to their risk appetite and their merchant agreements. Companies may have to pay a slightly higher margin if they want to take offline payments, depending on who is taking the risk. But in the case of London underground stations, there's no reliable coverage for the phones, but the barriers have wired connectivity to the back office, so it all works (yes, I'm aware that TfL use a sui generis arrangement for their contactless ticketing; my general point stands).

But the train company also has the option to get better connectivity. For example, one of the reasons both Chiltern and Virgin have sorted out the connectivity so that you can use the onboard WiFi all along their major routes is so that their staff have connectivity for ticket sales.

It's a mobile phone blackspot? Fig I dunno why. There have been device changes so maybe the problem is fixed & I don't know about it. It's the rail company device that can't make the connection with network, is what the Guards say, apologising at length. maybe I'll ask a guard about it tomorrow.

Also, when it's busy, So much faster to pay by cash. Card-users seem to take forever to get a ticket and then some of us wait so long we don't get tickets at all before arrival which means a forever queue to buy a ticket b4 can pass thru the barriers.

Also, when it's busy, So much faster to pay by cash.

With properly implemented contactless, that's flatly untrue. The campus I am on has rolled out contactless over all the food outlets, and it's transformational: I out of curiosity timed it (total appears on till to OK appearing on payment device) and it's well under a second. The same's true of my local station's ticket vending machines: from "please pay" to the ticket printing is around a second. There is absolutely no way you can pay by cash, whether manually or via a machine, in less than a second. Now most people are using it, it has had a noticeable effect on queue lengths at busy points.

It's the rail company device that can't make the connection with network

Precisely. So a situation which only arises in an edge case, of buying things using any sort of non-cash when you are buying it from people who are (a) operating a business without a reliable network connection and (b) are idiots who haven't planned properly for (a).

It's a mobile phone blackspot?

They do not work on mobile signal.

It's the rail company device that can't make the connection with network

It shouldn't need to. They should have an off line mode. It can store weeks worth of payments and will process when it gets a signal.

How do you think you can pay on an aeroplane which has no internet? It stores the data then downloads when it lands.

It's an archaic system if they don't have off line mode. Which train line was it?

I do all my train tickets on line but go through Topcashback. Love thst site. I'm about to cash in just iverc £400!

I always think people who don’t carry cash seem tight - they never give to charity collections or homeless in the street, office collections, tea kitty, tips etc etc How hard is it to carry a tenner and a few coins?!