The UK’s Fox News equivalent - why am I not surprised 
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GB News know their core (and steadily shrinking) demographic well.
Honestly these ridiculous papers need to stop lumping everything in with Farage. But I guess that’s a sure way to get clicks from the so inclined.
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I was talking to my 84-year-old mother yesterday and she was saying that she hasn’t withdrawn any cash since before the pandemic. She said that she uses Apple Pay wherever she can
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I feel like this is a psyop. If I set up Apple Pay for my Nan and showed her how to use it, she’d be able to use it fine and I can teach her how to set it up at the same time
Apple are even starting to integrate directly adding cards from app in the wallet app now so really we’re getting past any excuses about the ability to use a card and app etc
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I had an ‘incident’ at an Indian takeaway a few weeks ago whereby I pitched up at the counter to start an order and the very nice lady behind the counter got straight in there and informed me they were a cash only premises.
“But I don’t carry cash, ever” says I.
“There’s a cash machine outside the CO-OP a couple of doors along” says she
" I know, but I don’t use cash because I think it’s dirty and it’s often used as a tax avoidance tool, so thanks, but I’ll nip to Tesco instead and buy something there".
End of conversation.
Upshot for me is, cash has been dead to me for so long now, I just find it weird. I don’t want a stinking pile of heavy change making holes in my pockets or littering my car. I certainly don’t keep any cash whatsoever in the house, not even a change pot 
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I just tell them I don’t carry my card with me. If they have a card machine then they’ll suddenly find it! But guess what? Then I’ll tell them to shove it for lying to me 
The only exception I make is a few cash-only Chinese restaurants in Bristol and London, because it’s hard to find authentic Chinese food here(especially if you want something not Cantonese)
And concerning the “unbanked” as is usual, there is a failure to even mention the undocumented persons in the he UK who of course for very obvious reasons, have no bank account and are paid undoubtedly a pittance in cash only by ‘businesses’ who carry out no checks whatsoever on the people they employ.
I currently work in retail and we have so called tradesmen who will pay their bills cash only. Some have arrived with several thousand pounds in cash. I know damn well it’s all from cash in hand jobs and they’re effectively laundering the cash to avoid tax, but it’s not something you can accuse them of, even though you know they’re doing exactly that. It also causes us a nightmare because it has to be banked straight away, and that’s not always easy when theres no bank branches left
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I have a jar of Euro denominated coins for visiting Germany as they are still very cash based, especially for smaller businesses.
Only about 5% of the population is living completely cash free.
Also to research by Merchant Machine, in the UK, payments break down as follows:
Card payments make up more than half (51%) of transactions
This is followed by those made by digital wallets (32%)
Bank transfers make up 7%
Buy Now, Pay Later is also 7%
And cash is just 1%
Only 5% are completely cash free but only 1% of transactions are cash 
I’m convinced the UK is up there with all the other countries that are nearly cash free. It’s just hard to get recent figures.
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The article is broader than cashless society, but it is interesting. I think a lot of us have just gotten used to many of the crappy experiences that have come along as byproducts of the transition to a digital world, e.g. the need to manage multiple passwords, many examples of poorly designed online booking systems, the need to juggle multiple apps just to pay for parking are some examples. Those of us who regularly interact with digital devices just tolerate these experiences even though they are sometimes worse the systems they replace. But for people who don’t regularly use digital tools I can see how they create significant problems.
This isn’t what money laundering is, even in effect. It’s also not tax avoidance (which infers legal); it’d be tax evasion.
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I saw this happen at a Chinese takeaway - person had rung in - when they went to walk off they offered him the business sort code & account number given the food was prepped 
That seems to be fairly common in Europe now that there’s instant SEPA transfers. In Germany anyway who are still quite anti cards.
On that front, food outlet at our gate in Hamburg said no cards but actually meant they would only take EC card (which we had in the UK at one time) but have failed to realise that the German banks stopped issuing EC card a little over two years ago. So, given banks issue cards with up to five years validity only about 60% of Germans still have them now.
They really need an open banking equivalent in the parking app world. It is getting out of hand.
I imagine that it’s a similar decision reason elsewhere to where I am. Do we spend a fortune replacing the on street machines or do we award a contract for some parking app outfit to offer card payments?
They’re for public benefit and I’d like to argue should be accessible to people who are digitally excluded, including specifically the ability to pay card.
Alternatively I agree that they should have to maintain to a specification in an Open-Banking Style way so providers can integrate with them and achieve better per-app coverage
Fully agree that people shouldn’t be excluded but you are talking serious cash per machine and there can be thousands in some local authority areas. Because of that they are acquired on fairly long contracts i.e. you could be looking at 10 or 15 year contracts.
The apps are essentially in place to allow card payments years before the on street machines would be getting replaced. The new ones will likely take cards but maybe not cash as cash handling is quite expensive.
I’m fine for them to drop cash because the handling is expensive. I think they should take the CBDC we’ll have in the near future too, as well as card