Why we must preserve cash as a payment method

Across the world, a quiet revolution is underway. It has not been announced or debated, yet it is unfolding in plain sight. Cash, the oldest and most universal form of payment, is disappearing. In cafés, supermarkets, airports and even government offices, people tap cards or phones with such ease that paying with bills and coins now feels almost quaint. The pace varies by country, but the direction is unmistakable: a steady march toward a cashless future.

The appeal is obvious. Digital payments are fast, clean and convenient. They eliminate the need to count change or carry a wallet. They reduce the risk of street theft. They make online shopping seamless. They simplify disputes. And they promise a world where bank runs are relics of the past.

But beneath this convenience lies a hard truth. Cashlessness not only encourages impulse spending, but it builds a society that is fragile, exclusionary and dependent on systems that can fail or be weaponised. The risks are not theoretical. They are structural, predictable and already visible.

A cashless society makes our livelihoods dependent on perfect technology

The first danger is also the most overlooked. In a cashless world, your life savings become nothing more than entries in a database. If the system fails, you fail with it.

Consider what happens when electronic banking systems malfunction. A software bug, a corrupted database or a misconfigured update can instantly freeze millions of people out of their money. And that is before we even consider malicious actors.

This is not hypothetical. In 2016, North Korean state-sponsored hackers infiltrated Bangladesh Bank’s internal systems and attempted to steal nearly a billion dollars. They succeeded in diverting tens of millions. If a central bank can be robbed electronically, any institution can. And as geopolitical tensions rise, the likelihood of hostile cyberattacks only increases.

A society that eliminates cash is a society that bets everything on the uninterrupted functioning of complex digital infrastructure. That is neither thoughtful nor forward-looking. That is fragility, plain and simple.

Digital payments collapse when electricity or internet fails

Every digital payment system rests on two pillars: a stable electricity supply and a stable internet connection. Remove either, and the entire cashless structure collapses.

We have already seen what this looks like. When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, the island lost power for days. Most residents had embraced digital payments until they suddenly could not. ATMs were dead. Payment terminals were dead. People could not buy food, fuel or medicine. They were forced to search for whatever physical cash they could find.

This was not a failure of personal responsibility. It was a failure of system design. A cashless society has no graceful fallback. When the lights go out, so does the economy.

And it is not just natural disasters. Cyberattacks, grid failures, solar storms, political unrest or even a simple fibre optic cable cut can sever access to digital money. Cash is the only payment method that works when everything else does not.

Cashless systems give governments and corporations unprecedented control

A cashless society centralises power in the hands of institutions that can freeze, monitor or restrict access to money with a keystroke.

We have already seen governments weaponise financial systems against political opponents. In Hong Kong, authorities crippled the pro democracy newspaper Apple Daily by freezing its bank accounts. No court trial. No due process. Just instant financial suffocation.

In Canada, during the 2022 trucker protests, the federal government invoked emergency powers to freeze the bank accounts of peaceful demonstrators. Overnight, ordinary people found themselves unable to buy food, fuel or pay rent. Not because they were criminals, but because they were politically inconvenient.

These examples are not about left or right. They are about power. A society without cash is a society where dissent can be silenced by disabling a debit card.

Cashless economies exclude the poor and the marginalised

Not everyone can open a bank account. Not everyone has a smartphone. Not everyone has stable housing, government issued ID or the ability to navigate digital bureaucracy.

Children, the homeless, the elderly, migrants, people fleeing abuse and those living outside formal systems all rely on cash because it is the only form of money that does not require permission to use.

When a trendy café or boutique announces “card only,” it may feel modern, but it is also a quiet act of exclusion. A society that eliminates cash eliminates participation for those already on the margins.

Cash protects privacy, autonomy and human dignity

Every digital transaction creates a data trail. Every purchase becomes a data point. In a cashless world, your financial life is no longer yours. It becomes a product to be analysed, sold, surveilled or used against you.

Cash is the last remaining form of payment that preserves anonymity, autonomy and the right to transact without being tracked. Privacy is not a luxury. It is a pillar of a free society.

Cash is a redundancy, and redundancy is security

Modern societies function because they maintain backups: roads and railways, landlines and mobile networks, hospitals and clinics. Cash is the backup for money itself.

Eliminating it is like removing the fire exits from a building because the front door usually works.

What we must do

If we want a resilient, inclusive and free society, we must act now. We need to use the power of the pen to guarantee the legal right to pay with cash for essential goods and service. We need to require businesses to accept cash, especially for necessities. We need to protect access to ATMs and bank branches. We need to end regulations that treat cash users as presumptive criminals. And we need to reintroduce larger denomination bills to reflect modern prices. These are not radical demands. They are common-sense measures to preserve the integrity of our economic system.

The crime argument falls apart

Critics insist that cash enables crime. But abolishing cash does not abolish criminality, nor does it change the hearts of those intent on breaking the law. Criminals adapt. They already use cryptocurrencies, shell companies, prepaid cards and digital laundering networks. The idea that eliminating cash will eliminate wrongdoing is a fantasy, and a dangerous one. A society should not sacrifice the rights of millions to inconvenience a few bad actors.

Cash is freedom

Cash is more than paper. It is a lifeline in disasters, a shield against surveillance, a tool of inclusion, a check on institutional power, a guarantee of autonomy and a stabiliser of the entire financial system. We need to tap the brakes on our rush toward a cashless economy and build policies that protect cash as a permanent part of our future. A society without cash is a society without resilience. A society without cash is a society without privacy. A society without cash is a society without real freedom. And that is a price no modern nation should be willing to pay.

Louis Fok is a postdoctoral research associate and adjunct professor of epidemiology and public hygiene.