This month the UK Treasury Committee has posted a call for evidence on the question of whether to legally mandate the acceptance of cash in Britain.

We feel very strongly about this and have submitted a document supporting that idea, and we hope that you'll be inspired to also lend your support.

As workers in technology and cybersecurity we are immersed in a quite cloistered world. We interact daily with colleagues and companies who are gushing with enthusiasm about new 'efficient' ways to 'make life easier'. Sometimes we forget how real, ordinary people experience the technology we make. There are often downsides that have a negative effect on different aspects of security, including psychological and social security, and long-term resilience. But we are also sons, daughters, parents, neighbours and carers who must reckon with these effects.

Cash money is a vital component in any society and, we argue, cash capability is a national security asset equal in importance to energy, transport and food resilience. It can exist alongside electronic payments, but if those come to dominate and entirely displace cash that puts us all at risk.

Security is complicated. It encompasses many fields. Sometimes things that don't appear immediately relevant are actually at the core of a situation. We hope this article will help you appreciate how we can face unusual problems, like how too much of a good technology can ironically lead to a serious insecurity.

Here's a link to the relevant call for evidence by the Treasury. https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/treasury-committee/news/203571/acceptance-of-cash-to-be-investigated-by-treasury-committee

Here are the original questions:

Reproduced © UK.GOV 2024

The Committee is inquiring into whether there is a need in the UK to regulate or mandate the acceptance of physical cash in the form of notes and coins. The inquiry will consider any need for legislation and/or regulation, and potential costs to consumers and businesses.

We would welcome evidence on the following areas:

1. What is the current state of, recent trends in, and forecasts for cash acceptance in the UK?
2. Are there groups in society that disproportionately rely on businesses and public services accepting their cash? What challenges do they face?
3. Should the Government require parts of the economy to always accept cash? Are there sectors of the economy where cash acceptance is particularly important and should be protected?
4. What are the practical challenges that businesses might face from having to always accept cash? How do these challenges differ between large and small businesses?
5. What would the costs be, to private firms and the public sector, from any imposed requirements to always accept cash?
6. How might any such requirement for cash acceptance affect financial services firms? How would any requirement especially affect business involved in the provision of cash?
7. Are there any other areas or particular sectors where a decline in cash acceptance would cause problems?

The absence of cash in society can:

• Have a negative impact on education
• Create more risk for vulnerable people
• Reduce national economic resilience
• Expose everyone to hidden future costs

Cash makes the world go round. With it we can tip waiters, give to the homeless, charities and street musicians. It facilitates easy financial relations with our neighbours, friends and family. Ordinary citizens do not carry around electronic Point Of Sale (POS) terminals nor should they need to. A so-called "cashless" society is where direct monetary relations between friends and neighbours does not exist, and all transactions are mediated by corporations. This fundamentally changes the way we relate to one another. Significant groups of people now eschew "smartphones" for lots of reasons including mental heath concerns. Their right to participate in society without mandated technology must be respected.

Electronic payments can happily co-exist alongside cash, but a major problem with some technologies is that they aggressively displace others which have important functions by "Network Effects". That is why the government is looking at mandating cash as a common currency because failure to protect its usage may lead to a total collapse in cash processing everywhere.

Cash forms an economic buffer and fallback for an economy to "flywheel". Efficient supply-chains place society just three days from starvation. If systems go down we need a reliable, manual technology to see us through. We consider cash capability a national security asset as vital to continuity of operations as power, road, rail, health and food services.

Without cash charities cannot function as people are (wisely) reluctant to give bank details or engage in casual non-anonymous transactions.

Cash has a vital role in education. Imagine trying to teach kids mathematics, to share, divide money, count change and calculate interest in world without the practical basis of physical cash. Parents teach their kids financial responsibility with a piggy bank and pocket money. Contactless technologies encourage irresponsible spending habits and lead to debt.

Without cash there is more inflation. Foreign organisations - mainly in the US like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and PayPal - siphon a percentage of every UK transaction out of the country without paying proper tax. Multiplied by billions of transactions per year this takes billions of pounds out of our economy. Digital money may seem "convenient" but it has a hidden cost to our country and economy.

Many false claims are made about the "cost of cash", in it's handling and distribution. But these are specious because they neglect the equally huge costs of electronic payments, transaction fees, regulation compliance, computer security, and the vast amounts of energy used by data centres.

There are also my dishonest arguments made about cash and security, and its use by "criminals". In reality, electronic money is as hard to track for authorities because it can move around very fast, changing hands dozens of times per second and becoming cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and other forms of invisible digital wealth that fund crime. US based smartphone payment services from Google, Apple and so on, are no less legible to law enforcement. You can find illegal drug dealers in any town who take these "convenient" payments and are able to launder their proceeds. So, there is no simplistic answer around cash and anonymity. It is indeed a very desirable property for individual freedom of mainly law-abiding, tax-paying citizens who deal in small amounts of money. It protects vulnerable people such as women trying to leave an abusive relationship, who may have no financial independence.

Cash is also evolving. Look at modern European and UK bank notes which are extremely hard to forge. New technologies using e-Ink and printed active electronics will change the face of cash in coming years. Cash is a technology itself. It should not be contrasted to "technology" as if it were something 'old fashioned'. Don't fall victim to reckless and gushing neophytes (fanboys).

A currency that you can hold in your hand, that is durable, divisible (fungible), recognisable, hard to forge, and stable without the need for electricity is a highly evolved and trustworthy technology, a sucessful technology and one that is 5000 years old. Some people want to give that up for a precarious technology that is about 50 years old and relies on the Internet to work.

We think that makes everyone less secure.

Here's a video we participated in a few years ago now, that is more relevant than ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtM6tud8n1I