Concerns about payment system reliability, privacy and high card surcharges are all fuelling a trend back towards carrying and using cash in 2024.

Existing published data underestimates the role of cash in Australia’s economy. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s triennial Consumer Payments Survey (CPS) reported that physical cash’s share of consumer payments has fallen dramatically to 13 per cent in 2022 (16% for in-person payments) down from 27 per cent in 2019.

This number has been widely reported in the media but significantly underestimates the role of cash in the Australian retail payments market. The RBA’s CPS was conducted in November2022, a time still impacted heavily by the COVID pandemic and restrictions on movement.

Now, there are more ATM cash withdrawals per month than when the RBA CPS data was collected and there is more cash circulating in the economy NOW than November 2022.

This chart (above) shows data from the RBA, APRA and AusPayNet. The green lines represent the supply of cash through the number of main cash access points (ATMs and bank branches) in Australia. Orange and purple lines represent demand for cash (withdrawals and notes in circulation). Since the end of the COVID pandemic, demand for cash has outstripped easy and ready access to cash (supply).

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The number of ATM withdrawals in Australia has not been decline since pre-COVID. The number of ATM withdrawals is currently trending up. The value of monthly ATM cash withdrawals is up 4.5 per cent in the year to May 2024, reports the RBA. The number of ATM cash withdrawals is up 2.1 per cent in the year to May 2024, despite fewer ATMs.

Increasing number of outages and privacy concerns, plus high card surcharges are fuelling a trend towards people carrying physical cash ‘just in case.’

The Optus outage in November 2023and the CrowdStrike outage of July 2024, plus many other smaller system problems have dented community confidence in the reliability of cashless payment systems. The EcoCash outage in Zimbabwe 2019 killed that nation’s cashless experiment.

Demand and supply of cash in Australia is now out of whack. The cash-in-transit industry is not currently sustainable but 40 per cent of Australians are basically wedded to the use of cash.

Two big surveys in 2024 have confirmed that paying with cash is highly valued by around 40 per cent of Australians. Yougov reports that between 39% and 52% of Australians like to use cash, depending on their age group. Waave reports that 43 per cent of Australians use cash regularly.

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Now the Australian cash-in-transit (CIT) industry has been structurally unsustainable for many years. Commonwealth Bank's Matt Comyn has admitted banks have been underpaying for Cash In Transit for a long time:

"What we did was (we and others) accepted very attractive commercial terms. Perhaps we should have had the foresight to think well, that actually looks like it’s an unsustainable pricing and commercial model."

Going forward, banks, retailers and Australia Post can underpin a vibrant, competitive CIT sector by:

1)     Large retailers must commit to supporting cash acceptance and availability with fewer restrictions on EFTPOS cash-out.

2)     Large banks and Australia Post must support (and pay for) widespread access to cash in every community.

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Please sign our petition to ensure cash access and acceptance in Australia.