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Cashing out: Not likely anytime soon
Vegas seems an appropriate spot for an ATMIA conference focused on enhancing the self-service experience. Plenty of banknotes find their way into slot machines there.
February 13, 2015 by Richard Buckle — Founder and CEO, Pyalla Technologies, LLC
I’m just about to walk out the door and head for the car as I begin the drive from Boulder to Las Vegas. The ATMIA US Conference 2015 — Enhancing the Consumer’s Self-Service Experience is just days away and I will be attending! (Hope to see many of you there and yes, should you see me, stop me to say hi!) Another road trip, another stop at the gas pump and another withdrawal from the ATM — readers of my posts will know that I shun airline travel, and out on America’s byways you always need cash on hand.
In my most recent work with DataExpress, a company that specializes in securely moving files, I talked about the death of files. Comments made some time back by Google suggested that any interest in files was moot and even though Google was aiming its comments at Microsoft, the comments made headlines when Google suggested that files are so 1990s. While this observation was made in a slightly different context and referred to the file tab ubiquitous to all Microsoft applications, according to DataExpress CEO, Billy Whittington, it’s generated many questions among FIs about the relevance of solutions to move files if, indeed, files were old technology.
In a post I wrote for DataExpress, “So, a file is a file is a file,” I described the conversation with Whittington. As for the death of files, “Yes, we have heard this all through my career!” he said.
More illuminating for me was his next comment. “It may contain numeric or alphabetic data, it may be a media content file or even an object code component — yet if you look at it from the top down, it is still a file contained within a folder (or dare I say ‘dataset’)? Fortunately for us, we are data agnostic, we don’t care what’s inside, we will grab it, shake it, move it and eventually ‘let it go’ to tap popular sentiment.” No, files are not dead, nor is the need for them lessening any time soon.
With this exchange in mind, I caught a story in the Feb. 9 issue of The Sydney Morning Herald. It concerned the elimination of yet another staple of our society — cash. The article began, “Australia's tap-and-go explosion and developing countries' use of biometric identification are at the vanguard of credit card companies' bid to kill cash, according to MasterCard's president of international markets, Ann Cairns.”
Of course, such an opening had my immediate attention. As for the rest of the article, there were more statements by MasterCard’s Cairns, one of which, in reference to what was happening in Australia, I couldn’t ignore. "This is an incredibly innovative market, you are the biggest in the world in contactless," she said. "Contactless payments are replacing small purchases under $100 with half of all MasterCard transactions in Australia now done using its PayPass."
Whenever Australia is ranked first or the biggest you have my undivided attention, as this only happens occasionally (however, beside Australia's win in the 1983 Americas’ Cup, all other first and biggest paled in significance). The thought that even in the Australian marketplace cash would disappear is a huge overstatement. I might be going out on a limb here, but inside every bush pub scattered across the continent, the old “cockies” propping up the bar are no more likely to tap and pay than they are to shout a stranger a schooner of beer. The only thing this element of Australian society knows about "taps" is that their credit cards are tapped out! The death of cash? Highly unlikely!
Putting Aussie bush colloquialisms aside, Australia is a mature market when it comes to financial transactions and in many ways is similar to what we find in the U.S. It's even a little more advanced in some areas — EMV has been in place for a very long time.
However, even as mature as the market might be, I know of few Australians who wouldn’t be alarmed if they couldn’t get access to cash. How could they bet on the horses come carnival time? What about the office sweeps? Let’s not forget that it was Australia that first went to plastic banknotes so they could keep them in circulation just a little longer.
For as long as I have been posting to this blog, the prospect of a cashless society has been floated and, in every case, the final observations fell well short of the mark. In a country with a sound economic base and where currency is a key aspect of sovereignty, cash will continue to be king.
Not for naught is it the role of some of the highest security organizations in the land to protect a nation’s currency. With little likelihood of anyone returning to a gold standard, we are all still very dependent upon cash.
Of course, none of this is lost on OmniPayments Inc. CEO, Yash Kapadia. Always across what’s happening in the real world, Yash wasn’t shy about his thoughts on the death of cash.
“Certainly, it has been a goal of FIs to move to an all non-cash world and it’s been the subject of a lot of discussion through the years,” said Yash. “Support for cash is expensive and in an electronic age there’s much to be said for a virtual currency and, in the case of Ecuador, there’s even been publicity around that nation’s plans of adopting a virtual currency nationwide: 'Ecuador Turning to Virtual Currency After Oil Loans.' However, whether we talk about a mature market or one that’s just developing, there still is no real alternative to cash and the price of cash continues to be right! Debit card usage is a stepping stone along the path to cash alternatives but even with debit cards, much of their usage is to simply obtain cash.”
You might be reading this post after the ATMIA event has begun (or ended, even). All the same, choosing Las Vegas as the locale for a conference focused on enhancing the consumer’s self-service experience seems rather appropriate. Plenty of bank notes find their way into slot machines there.
With my good friend, Bill Breaker, visible everywhere you turn, the prospect of Vegas ever going completely cashless seems absurd. In a place where Elvis continues to be The King it would be reckless to consider anything other than cash as king, as well. With that, I look forward to seeing you all at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.
photo courtesty laughing_girl666 | flickr
About Richard Buckle
Richard Buckle is the founder and CEO of Pyalla Technologies, LLC. He has enjoyed a long association with the Information Technology (IT) industry as a user, vendor, and more recently, as an industry commentator, thought leader, columnist and blogger. Richard participates in the HPE VIP Community where he is part of their influencer team.
