Reasons against the abolition of physical money

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Protect Individual Privacy and Freedom

The most fundamental argument against the abolition of cash is its role as the last bastion of financial privacy.

Financial Anonymity: Cash transactions are peer-to-peer and generally anonymous. Abolishing cash means every single transaction – from buying a coffee to donating money – is recorded, time-stamped, and linked to an individual. This loss of anonymity is a direct threat to civil liberties and an enabler of a potential surveillance state.
Prevent Financial Discrimination (De-Platforming): In a cashless society, financial services providers (banks, payment networks) become gatekeepers to all economic activity. These entities could potentially de-platform individuals or groups whose political or social views they disagree with by freezing or restricting access to their funds, a power that is impossible when physical cash is available.
Freedom from Data Harvesting: The digital trail left by cashless payments is a goldmine for data brokers and corporations. Eliminating cash means all personal spending habits become commercial data, leading to hyper-targeted advertising, potentially manipulative pricing, and other forms of data exploitation.

Cash serves a crucial role in ensuring universal access to the economy, particularly for vulnerable groups.

The Unbanked and Underbanked: In many countries, a significant population cannot use formal banking services – e.g. in the Philippines (and many other poorer countries) only 50% of Filipino adults have a financial account with a formal institution¹ – only Cash Money is their gateway to the market.
Digital Literacy and Access: The ability to use digital money requires a smartphone or computer, reliable internet, and a degree of digital literacy. The elderly, those in poor health, or residents of areas with poor internet broadband infrastructure would face significant barriers to participation in a cashless economy.
Budgeting and Debt Prevention: For many lower-income households, physical cash is a superior tool for tangible budgeting. Seeing the physical money drain away makes spending limits clearer and more immediate than abstract digital numbers, helping to prevent debt.

Cash acts as a critical backup mechanism when technological systems fail.

Cybersecurity Risk: A fully cashless society concentrates all economic activity into a single, massive digital target. A major, coordinated cyber-attack on a national power grid or a central payment network could instantly paralyze the entire economy, making basic survival (buying food, gas, medicine) impossible.
Infrastructure Failure: Reliance on digital payments means the economy is vulnerable to simple failures like power outages, telecom disruptions, or hardware malfunctions. Cash functions reliably regardless of whether the lights are on or the internet is running.
Emergency and Disaster Preparedness: In natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, floods), payment systems often crash, and power is lost for extended periods. Cash is essential for humanitarian aid and maintaining basic services until infrastructure can be restored.

Cash provides an essential floor for monetary policy, known as the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB)².

Limiting Negative Rates: In a deep recession, central banks might wish to impose negative interest rates (charging banks to hold money!) to force banks to lend and encourage consumers to spend. If the rate becomes too negative, people would simply withdraw their funds and hold them as physical cash (which has a zero nominal return). Only this risk of cash hoarding prevents central banks from setting interest rates too low.
Eliminating the Cash Floor: Abolishing cash removes this constraint. This gives central banks potentially unchecked power to impose highly punitive negative rates, which could erode savings and distort financial markets in unpredictable ways, undermining a citizen’s ability to save for the future.

Cash transactions often represent the lowest-cost form of payment for businesses, especially all the small ones.

Avoidance of Merchant Fees: Banks and payment processors charge businesses merchant interchange fees for every credit or debit card transaction. For small businesses with thin margins, these fees (often 1-3% of the transaction) can be substantial. Cash transactions bypass these costs entirely.
Speed of Settlement: While digital payments can be fast, cash provides instant, guaranteed settlement for the merchant, eliminating the risk of chargebacks or settlement delays sometimes associated with electronic funds.

How do you buy things? Do you still like to pay for things in cash? Or do you prefer to use digital services?
Tell us your favorite payment method (and why) in the comment section.
What thoughts and feelings do you have towards cash, bills and coins?
Do you like having money, what you can hold in your hands?
Should we all go cashless?
What do you see as downsides of a cashless society?
Should we be concerned about the large profits enjoyed by banks and credit card companies?
Should we be concerned about the privacy risks?
Do you want to pay your ice cream cashless? And if so, How?
Should all businesses still have a cash option?
Should it even be forbidden for businesses to refuse cash payments?
Do you think we will ever live in a completely cash-free economy?