The #cashless movement is growing in cities like New York and San Francisco, where, paradoxically, a number of businesses remain “cash-only.” But as more stores go cashless — with good reason — there may be another consequence: the shutting out of the underbanked.

The good reasons to go cashless are that no counting change means faster service, and no cash to tempt bad guys means more safety for employees. The downside is more fees to payment networks and processors, and also that cash-dependent customers will need to go elsewhere. Those without bank accounts or credit are reliant on prepaid cards, and cash plays a larger role in their money management and budgeting.

The New York Times noted, “Not surprisingly, the credit card companies, who make a commission on every credit card purchase, applaud the trend. Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward for depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice. A Visa executive described this practice to CNN as offering shoppers ‘freedom from carrying cash.'”

But Twitter users jumped on the article and accused restaurants of deliberately seeking to exclude the underbanked, particularly the homeless:

The unspoken side effect is that this keeps out people who are homeless. I doubt that is accidental. https://t.co/IoeQ8undZx

— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) December 26, 2017

And indeed keeping out the homeless may be a feature rather than a bug for city businesses. The cashless trend is even more advanced in countries like Sweden, where a broader social safety net and services may mean fewer underbanked. And in the U.K., ATMs themselves are threatened with extinction.

Read more in The New York Times and Daily Mail.

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