Expert Market: Cash Has 25 Years To Live

The folks at Expert Market sent us out a report that, at least as far as the UK is concerned, paper money may not have much longer to live. With a pool of 1,600 people studied, the results were pretty heavily stacked against cash in the region, but will this last with the next generation?

Naturally, millennials—for this study those aged 21 through 36—were eschewing cash in large numbers, instead favoring a mix of mobile payments, contactless payments, and app-based payment systems. A full third—33 percent—of millennials were out of cash altogether, and one in five as a standard carried less than five pounds sterling ($6.59 as of this writing) at any given time. Nearly half—41 percent—of millennials preferred using apps for paying back friends, peer-to-peer (P2P) apps like Venmo often fill this need.

This is having direct impact on cash-based businesses; 46 percent of millennials actually won’t shop at a cash-only business, while 68 percent report feeling “frustrated” by having to pay. In fact, in perhaps the most shocking news of all, nearly one in four—24 percent—of millennials report actually throwing away physical cash. It’s not just millennials out of favor with cash; 34 percent of Generation X and 34 percent of baby boomers think cash is doomed to obsolescence in the next 25 years.

It’s clear the millennials enjoy mobile payment systems, and as they continue a path toward being the alpha consumer, businesses will have to make accommodations accordingly or risk losing that trade. That’s nothing new. However, we know that Generation X is still in the hunt as prime consumption goes—when you’re 37–54, you’re thinking about boats and retirement properties—and Generation Z’s cash preferences are well known. Plus, there are still boomers out there, many of which are retired now. Though they’re on a fixed income, they’ll do no small share of spending on gifts for the grandkids and those adventures they’ve been putting off all their working years.

A cashless society because of the predilections of one here-today-gone-tomorrow generation seems like a step too far. However, cashless options are likely to be a thing the farther on we go; they have support in every generation, and not providing an option customers want is a sure path to bankruptcy for businesses.