To think paying with cash is a faff?

[Newtrick]

Are you put off by cash only businesses?
We have a local cafe that I like, and was hoping to take a group of friends to this weekend for a booked after noon tea

They've just announced that they will only be accepting cash going forward, aibu to then cancel my booking and tell them why?

I completely get the harshness of card processing fees so get when then there is a spending limit before you use cards eg. One donut= cash but it feel like if the total is more than £10 pound like their meals, can be then you should be able to use card
I rarely have any cash on me, but when I do its usually never more than 10-15 pound

The shop it's self is on a country route so its at least a few miles from the nearest cash point so its going to make it hard to pop in for things

The people that run the cafe are fairly alternative in their views so the announcement has got a lot of support in the form of "wake up, cash is king, government is tracking you via card" type responses.

Ultimately I'm probably going to cancel my booking because its a pita to tell each friend that they need to bring £25 cash each for the afternoon tea, knowing that if they forget that they will have at least a 6 mile drive to get cash out if that cash point is even open

Yabu- just use cash
Yanbu- cash is a pain

Loads of take always and cafes locally to me are cash only, personally I like having some cash on me at all times, if cash is so unpopular why are there so many cash points everywhere

There aren't as many cash points as there used to be and a lot of them charge you to withdraw your money now.

I like to use cash where possible and actively avoid places which are are "card only". Leaving aside the fact some elderly and cognitively-impaired people would struggle without cash, as would those who use it to budget, there's a more sinister reason not to convert to card-only living: If we lose cash we lose our personal freedom; we can be tracked and monitored at all times.

I also saw an article once where it listed cash as essential for DV victims etc to escape without being tracked by their abuser.
I've pushed back against card only for the past 6 months or so as I don't want to be a cashless society for many reasons.

They don't have to pay as high as 1.8% - it's a competitive market and it's easy to get cheaper than that.

They'd have to pay the bank to pay in large amounts of cash anyway. Most business bank accounts only allow a relatively small amount of cash to be banked "charge free" and then they charge a percentage over that low amount, or you can go on a different tarriff to get cheaper cash handling, but it's a higher monthly fee.

I would make a point of going to this cafe. I do not want a cashless society.

someone gave me cash,
i went to bristol and no where would take it!
so annoying.
on the whole i never carry cash.

there is a greengrocer i go to, cash if under £5
that is a pain.

Well they wouldn't get any passing trade from me, as I never carry cash these days. And I'd probably cancel a planned visit in your circumstances, there would be bound to be one of the party who didn't bring cash and caused chaos.

In a large group of friends I would usually take cash with me anyway because how else do you pay? Unless the cafe spilts the bills (which is rare). I wouldn't be put off by this unless you've forgotten your pin and can't get cash out of an ATM in advance.

I live in London, if I can't tap payment via my phone then it's a deal breaker.

Cash is all a bit... 1990s lol

i don’t keep cash on me to be honest i prefer card or apple pay

Nationwide reported cash withdrawals went up for the first time in 13 years in 2022. Over 30 million withdrawals from Nationwide’s atms last year.
People are definitely using cash more.

No, that could just mean that other banks have removed their cash machines, Nationwide didn't, so more people used theirs, hence increased usage of theirs. It doesn't mean more cash was withdrawn across all machines does it?

I asked my DS how they split the bill when he goes out with his Uni friends. Apparently there's an app that splits the bill and they all pay their share directly, or sometimes one person pays on their card and the others do bank transfers to the payer by internet banking for their share. DS never uses cash, but they go out together for a meal, or get a joint takeaway delivered every week or so, so it's a pretty common arrangement for them to each pay their own share electronically.

The rest of the banks are releasing their statistics in the next days/weeks and they look to be saying a rise in withdrawals as well. Nationwide are the only ones that have currently released their statistics.

I use Apple Pay for everything, I barely ever take my purse anywhere.

The last time I took cash out was for a work man, probably a bit dodgy! Someone gave me some cash for Christmas, I keep forgetting I have it!

I hate it when we are asked to take cash in for work to contribute to stuff, luckily 95% of the time it’s bank transfer.

So many places take card these days, burger vans, market stalls. Also the argument about poor signal meaning they loose out on payments is wrong, I was recently visiting a a stately home in the middle of nowhere. The transaction took a few minutes to go through, the member of staff explained it was due to the poor WiFi and explained she’d have to wait for it to be confirmed before we could go in. Hardly a disaster, maybe a bit tedious in busy periods, but they certainly weren’t turning people away to go and get cash.

I may take cash out for a special occasion but it’s honestly such a faff. I’d go to your lunch and make sure I took cash out in advance, but I probably wouldn’t go there again, not out of spite, just because it’s not a convenient option.

I prefer cash, I always use it when I can because I don’t want it to stop being an option.
i can’t get onboard with the sentiment that it’s annoying to queue behind someone paying in any way though, that’s just looking for problems.
“I hate standing behind someone fiddling in their purse” “I hate standing behind someone scrolling on their phone”
I’ll just stand behind anyone paying in any way, Count it out in pennies for all i care. When did someone else’s choices become so triggering?

As an asideI offered to pay by what ever was easiest in another small business last week. They chose card because they said the rate for card transactions vs what they get charged at the bank is very similar so combined with having to store cash, and the trickyness of local banks dissappearing

OP is this cafe good?

if it’s good, make the effort, go get cash. Presumably you pass somewhere, sometime in your day, that has a cash machine. That petrol station you mentioned. Yeah. I’m sure you pass it.

so go in, take out the cash.

Stop cutting off your nose to spite your face just to make a point. If they’re good, pay them how they want to be paid.

I keep a small box of cash for when I need to (my local takeaway likes cash, so does my window cleaner, and I prefer leaving cash tips).

We are becoming infantilised by needing every micro action to be optimised for convenience with the least possible time or friction in the transaction.

Just use cash. It’s fine. You did it before once years ago I’m sure.

Or cancel your meal, and huff about it online here when you’re ready.

When I go out with a group we each work out our share of the bill, some pay cash, others (including me) just ask the server to put whatever our share is on our cards - they do end up doing multiple card transactions, but with contactless it's very quick.

For the most common simple card readers without monthly fees the transaction rates are:

SumUp 1.69%
Zettle 1.7%
Square 1.75%

These both can be run on a basic handheld card reader accompanied by phone or app, or with more featured standalone card readers with their own 3g connection etc

Basic handsets range from £20 to £40 (it is common to get a free offer or a discount from those prices)
’Better’ handset upgrades are in the range of £70 to as far as £200

The minimum transaction for SumUp and Zettle is £1.00, (so they are no good if you have any items for less) and the fee is rounded up per transaction (so you really pay up to 2%)

There is a card reader that’s being advertised as having a 1% fee, but in the small print is 1% plus 1p, so also starts at 2%
(It was heavily advertised on Facebook late last year, but I can’t find it again)
Similar in theory to the basic non subscription SumUps etc but the starter level machine was 3g and therefore costs more to get going, and though the fee was cheaper you need to sell enough to break even on the handset)

With rounding the starting transaction fees for the above are:

SumUp etc = £1 sale fee is 2p, £2 is 4p, £3 is 5p to 6p
1% plus 1p= £1 sale fee is 2p, £2 is 3p, £3 is 4p

With the 1% handset (I recall to be > £100) you need enough card sales turnover to save you at least a difference of £60 which is 6000 1ps
Not too hard if you are a busy enough shop, but then you would be better off with contract based POS based systems which could be on a fee of 0.3%, 0.6% etc but also with a fixed monthly fee on top
’Proper’ POS systems will remove the £1 minimum sale

pos ... pos ... nope. Lost it. What is POS ?

Point of sale.

Yes and I walk away and drive away if no cash. My money not good enough so their choice . Seems I'm not the only one as the council thinking of bringing in wave parking machine s as no one going into the local town now as you can't park without some silly app