Did you notice?

• The slow creep of cashlessness?
• Cafes or other businesses not accepting cash as payment for goods or services?
• The inability to hop on a bus and pay the fare with coins?
• Some libraries not accepting larger denomination notes due to a reduction in bank branches in the area?
• A general push towards tapping and swiping cards and phones instead of carrying coins and notes?
• Discussion surrounding the potential ‘health hazards’ of using cash?

All for our ‘convenience’ and ‘safety’?

While it may seem easier to leave the wallet at home and pop your card in your pocket, there are some serious downsides to participating in the incremental death of cash.

The authorities will always frame solutions to real or manufactured problems in a positive light. However, we must ensure open and transparent discussions of any policies regarding implementing alternatives to cash, including the risks, benefits, and the potential trajectory toward a totalitarian system of government.

Removing our ability to earn, save, and use cash places us all at risk of government overreach.

• there’s a power outage?
• a systems crash removes your ability to make transactions?
• hackers access user accounts and personal details?
• your weekly purchases exceed your personal carbon score allowance?
• the views you express online run contrary to that of the current government?
• you donate funds to a cause or organisation deemed ‘dangerous’ (such as the Canadian truckers)?

Could access to your finances be limited or removed by the Government?

Sleepwalking into accepting measures to become a cashless society alongside the digital ID and wallet technology enabling such a system would be a grave mistake.

From practical nice-to-haves to life-threatening consequences of our nation going cashless, there are many reasons why we should all advocate for retaining cash as a method of payment in New Zealand. 

Here are just a few…