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Hello
I would like to send in my comments and thoughts as to why Jersey should absolutely NOT become a cashless society.
How will our children learn the value of money without physical coins and notes to hold touch and use to buy things? They will miss out on the joy of a note falling out of a birthday card. The fun and excitement of taking that money to buy toys and games in shops. An online voucher does not hold the same appeal and engagement. Asking them to count out change etc when buying items in a shop is such a great active and real life learning experience which would be lost without cash.
How will people budget? With the rise in the cost of living more and more people are budgeting buy using cash.
Charities have already noticed a decline in donations since cash was given an evil spin during covid. This will only worsen with no cash. We have tins on our counter at work and without donations of change these tins will remain very empty. 10p here and 50p there makes a huge difference to their work.
Local vegetable honesty stalls need cash to keep going. As many sales are small the fees involved in card transactions do not make it worthwhile and will force prices to go up at a time when costs are already spiralling.
With the costs involved in card transactions the only winners of a cashless society are banks and card machine companies. Obviously they will capitalise and increase fees. Local businesses struggle already with the costs involved and being able to take cash for small transactions and anyway makes more financial sense. That cash does not decrease in value like a card machine transaction does with all the fees involved. I work for a small local business and so I see this in action everyday.
I really hope that Jersey does not choose to remove cash. People are already struggling to live here and whilst our population is too high it would be the loss of key workers which would have a huge huge impact on our societies ability to function. Please do not try to pave the way or think that you are being cool as the world first. No cash will equal the destruction of society as we know it. And I do not mean that as a positive thing.
Many thanks for reading this
Taryn
Concerned Mum to an 8 year old