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0 pointsmattmaroon2y ago0 comments

As a small merchant I can tell you: cash sucks to deal with and it costs money too. I went to cashless years ago. The 2.x% I eat in processing is more than made up for in not having to deal with shrinkage (either due to theft or inaccuracy or counterfiet bills), security, having to count money and go to the bank regularly, etc.

It's probably different when you're at a much larger scale than I am, but even Wal-Mart (who I was employed by in my late teens) has all sorts of cash-handling procedures to mitigate the risk of money just walking away. Even a their scale, they spend 1% on CC processing, but by the time they added up all of the labor and expenses of cash handling,it might be comparable. And for a small business it's likely more.

And then there's the data collection which has value too.

People act like accepting cash is free, it is not.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

xur172y ago· 2 in thread

This is why we need a digital cash equivalent. Transferring value shouldn't have to cost 1-3% of the transaction value. It's an absurdly high tax.

ac292y ago

Debit card transactions in the US are capped to 0.05% + 21c for non-exempt card issuers[0]. The problem is there are a lot of exempt issuers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durbin_amendment

mattmaroonOP2y ago

It is especially because most of the fraud just gets passed onto the merchants anyway

coldpie2y ago

Thanks, this is an interesting opinion to read! I went through a period where I asked most small/local businesses I happened to be shopping at whether they preferred cash or card, as I had both to hand. It was a small sample size, but the vast majority said they didn't care either way, and a handful said they preferred cash. I never experienced card-only or a card-preference. That did surprise me, as I expected at least some to feel as you do.

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