Cultural representations of pandemics and other apocalyptic scenarios often encourage us to reflect differently on those things we take for granted in our day-to-day lives. Seemingly mundane and dependable items no longer appear so mundane, nor so dependable. ‘Money’ itself is one such entity, which has been the object of various reimaginings within fictional accounts of disaster and subsequent societal breakdown. In ‘Bartertown’, the fictional trading place in the Mad Max film, for example, we witness the total collapse of civilization and, with it, the entire monetary system; swapping and bartering are all that matter in such a place. Money is erased from a society in which violence dictates everyday life.

Thankfully, such fictional accounts appear not to reflect the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the crisis does still provoke important questions about the future of money and how we pay for things. Cash – our physical coins and banknotes – has moved from being a mundane and dependable thing to something that many view as a threat, another source of spreading the virus. Cash as a medium of ‘exchange’ has taken on a new meaning. As such, many retailers are strongly encouraging customers to pay by card, while the limit on contactless payments has been increased from £30 to £45 per transaction in the UK, with similar moves across Europe. Automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawal figures – which were already on the decline – have plummeted.

What just a few months ago might have seemed like fiction – a seismic shift in the way we pay for things – has now become reality. The future of cash is very much at stake, and in the discussion that follows we begin by exploring why this still matters. We then consider the effect of COVID-19 on access to cash, situating these changes in the broader context of digitization and pre-crisis trends. We conclude by reflecting what the pandemic can teach us about what we can do better moving forward, ensuring that no one is left behind.

Cash matters

Money has been integral to human history for thousands of years. Early coins in circulation across Asia and Europe enabled civilization and economies to evolve from bartering to the generalized system of exchange that continues to exist in modern capitalism.