Britain to go cashless in 2043?

Britain will finally be cashless by 2043, at least that's what an online casino is betting after examining paper money's form.

Gala Casino used linear regression on cash usage data from 2004 to 2014, which saw a drop from 71% to 53%, and Payments UK predictions for 2024, to arrive at its guesstimate that 2043 will be the year in which the number of cash transactions reaches zero per cent.

Last year non-cash payment methods overtook cash transactions and Payments UK predicts card will overtake notes and coins by 2021. Mastercard research recently found that Brits think cash will die out by 2036 but data trends suggest this is likely to be optimistic.

Stephen Hart, CEO, CardSwitcher, says: "The move from cash to cashless will follow a similar progression to the demise of cheques. Cheque use has plummeted and there are regular calls for them to be scrapped entirely. This, however, has not happened because there are key groups who still use them."

A Gala Casino survey shows that 66% of Brits use cash on a daily basis. The same percentage say that they avoid businesses which don’t offer alternative options to cash but 68% would be scared to live in a society that was entirely cashless. Fraud (61%), reliance on technology (45%) and lack of privacy (31%) are cited as the biggest causes for concern.

However, the rise of contactless is expected to ween more people off of cash. According to Barclaycard, more than half of payments under £30 in London are tap and pay, and cash volumes are forecast to fall by 30% over the next ten years.

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Comments: (4)

A Finextra member 14 March, 2017, 14:58

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Interested how 66% of those surveyed stated use cash on a daily basis and 68% would be scared of a cashless society.

Indeed, UK ATMs saw 2.8 billion withdrawals in the last reported year totalling £188 billion. Thats the equivilent of £350,000 a minute or almost £6,000 a second.

Personally feel that indeed there may be "less cash" in society in the future and there will be a wide mix of payment choices driven by convenience and flexibility for consumers. Card, eWallet and cash all happily exist together would seem likely.

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Melvin Haskins - Haston International Limited - 14 March, 2017, 16:43

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Great analysis.

By 2043 we will all be using flying cars and it will be optional to take up residence on Mars.

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Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 14 March, 2017, 18:13

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I too used linear regression five years ago and came up with the result that end of cash is 190 years away. The Death Of Cash Is At Least 190 Years Away. But if a casino says cash will be dead in 2043, we have to believe it - as they say, the house always wins.

Actually, cash can be killed even earlier - all it will take is demonetization of currency notes.

LOL @MelvinHaskins but I think we'll be using flying cars before 2043; and, by 2043, Mars residence won't be an option because we'd have run out of space on Earth!

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A Finextra member 17 March, 2017, 11:37

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As events of the last year or two have proven, predicting the future is a little tricky. And saying something is going to happen in 20 odd years is about as useful as watching Tomorrow's World proved to be back in the day. Not sure why you would use linear regression to extrapolate tech adoption which does not usually follow a very linear path...190 years has become 26 years in 5 years?