The cashback comeback?
Despite cash’s apparent demise — and the fact that card use, online transactions, and digital wallets like Apple Pay only look set to rise in the coming years — vendors themselves are increasingly encouraging customers to keep things old-fashioned.
Flip the script
Last year, some 2.93% of all cash payments came with a discount, as merchants still look to avoid excessive “swipe fees”. Those fees, set by payment networks to charge customers every time they use one of their credit cards, can regularly cost between 2-4% of the transaction — a surcharge that reportedly sets the average US family back more than $1,000 each year. To combat that, vendors seem increasingly happy to say “Hey, if you pay by cash, we can both save a little”, particularly if they’re a small or independent business.
It’s not just anti-swipe store owners, either: there’s a younger generation that’s surprisingly interested in dealing in cash… Gen Z.
