Sreya Kalapala
October 16, 2026
As the world grows increasingly digitized, it is not unusual to see “no cash payment” or “card only” signs displayed at businesses’ checkout counters. This is often seen as a reasonable reaction to the surge in consumers who pay using digital methods. However, with businesses turning to cashless transaction models, too much stands to be lost from replacing cash with strictly online forms of payment. While there are no federal policies in the United States regarding cashless businesses, some states and cities, such as New Jersey, New York, and San Francisco, have passed laws requiring retail businesses to accept cash payments [1].
Additionally, many European countries, such as Belgium, Ireland, and Spain, have enacted specific regulations to ensure an availability of cash payment options for consumers. These countries have been relatively successful, as following the introduction of these regulations, they have seen significant percentage increases in the number of businesses that accept cash, leading to greater financial inclusion and crisis resilience. As such, it is important to seriously consider the merits of implementing a similar expansion of policy regarding businesses accepting and conducting cash transactions.
On March 31, 2024, Belgium’s Federal Cash Access Law was put into place, requiring that a majority of shops accept cash payments from customers, taking into account that cash is legal tender [11]. Similarly, on May 22, 2025, Ireland’s Access to Cash Legislation passed, aiming to preserve the availability of cash infrastructure, such as ATMs, to individuals and small businesses. The legislation seeks to prevent the financial exclusion of certain groups as digital payments continue to grow [12]. Likewise, on May 28, 2022, Spain passed a law requiring that retailers accept cash from customers [13]. Each of these policies is relatively new and was enacted in response to growing awareness of the shift toward digital payments and the possibility that this could leave a significant portion of the population without a way to purchase goods or services.
Though there are not as many institutionalized parameters regarding the use of cash for buying and selling goods to consumers in the United States, Europe has had similar rules in place for some time. Since euro banknotes and coins were introduced on January 1, 2002, the value of the euro cash in circulation has increased by eight times and now is greater than €1.6 trillion [2]. Moreover, consumer research conducted by the European Central Bank demonstrates that 73% of retail transactions conducted in the euro area were done so in cash [3]. It seems that, given the opportunity, the utilization of cash does not drastically fall, but instead expands to meet the needs of the people using it.
With the option of cash given, there also is an implied offer of universality that cannot be similarly attributed to credit cards or digital wallets [2]. Regardless of bank account, the user’s device, gender, personal wealth, or status, cash can be used for all transactions. Cash affords the ability to certain segments of society that may have greater difficulty in making payments through methods other than cash.
Continuing to look at Europe, according to the World Bank Findex, there were around 13 million adults in 2021 who were unbanked, meaning individuals who do not use the services of any banking institutions, along with other individuals who may be underbanked due to insufficient access to financial services [5]. This number makes up approximately 3.6% of Europe’s population, which has significantly improved from the 31 million people (around 8.2% of the population) reported unbanked in 2017. Parallelly, within the United States, in 2021 the FDIC found that around 6 million households were unbanked and more were underbanked [16]. These are people who are largely unfamiliar with, or lack comfortability and ease of access to online banking, and continue to use cash: groups such as the elderly, rural communities, those in poverty, and the blind and visually impaired [2]. Cash offers the elderly financial control without the need for passwords or the requirement of learning to use new forms of technology, where “some elderly who may be averse to or struggle with digital technology” [14]. Similarly, “rural communities who suffer from poor internet and cellular service” may find digital payments are often inaccessible, just as they are to those with visual impairments, sometimes making it easier to utilize unique methods of bill sorting and counting that a person has adapted for their needs. These groups, which are examples of the communities that Ireland’s aforementioned Access to Cash Legislation is meant to target, have reasons to continue to utilize cash in their transactions because of its universal quality that allows for exchanges to occur without entry into formal banking institutions. Furthermore, it is often these specific populations who are older, of lower income and education level, who receive their income in cash that tend to be unbanked to begin with, which only further perpetuates the institutional barriers that make it much simpler to conduct their business in cash [8].
Given the universality that cash offers, it follows that cash is especially useful and crisis-resistant. In times of great uncertainty, during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, individuals increased the amount of physical money that was in their possession as a precaution for the future [9]. Regardless of what happens, cash is independent of technological or online systems to operate, allowing for its universal nature. In a situation where there is a large enough supply of elastic cash—a money supply that shrinks and expands based on the needs of the economy—cash has been shown to have a stabilizing effect. So, in cases such as the 2008 financial crisis, the aforementioned Covid-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine, cash was an integral component in the stabilization of the economic conditions that followed, and can continue to be, given the opportunity [10].
With the rise in cashless businesses and with a lack of definitive federal legislation to cement certain financial freedoms in place, large segments of the population stand to lose a significant part of their ability to participate in the consumption of goods. If the question is an individual’s ability to buy what they need and consume what they want, an answer to that question is to legislate a solution. Creating an avenue for cash purchases to be an option everywhere for everyone only means that those who want to utilize that alternative are able to, and those who do not want to do not have to do so; and in all, it seems a very small price to pay.
Works Cited
[1] Quinton, Sophie. 2021. “Paying With Cash? Retailers Must Take Your Dollars in These States.” Stateline. https://stateline.org/2021/05/11/paying-with-cash-retailers-must-take-your-dollars-in-these-states/
[2] Lepecq, Guillaume. 2022. “Why Is Cash Essential in the 21st Century.” Finance Watch.
[3] European Central Bank. 2020. “Study on the payment attitudes of consumers in the eurospace (SPACE).”
https://cashessentials.org/app/uploads/2020/12/ecb.spacereport202012bb2038bbb6.en_.pdf
[4] European Central Bank. “The role of cash.”
[5] World Savings and Retail Banking Institute-European Savings and Retail Banking Group. “Number of unbanked adult EU citizens more than halved in the last four years.”
[6] European Commission. 2021. “One in five people in the EU at risk of poverty or social exclusion.”
[7] European Blind Union. “About Blindness & Partial Sight: Fact and Figures.”
[8] Kajdi, Lásló. 2022. “Consumer payment preferences in the euro area.” European Central Bank.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2729~77a315ffeb.en.pdf
[9] Tamele, Barbora, Alejandro Zamora-Pérez, Chiara Litardi, John Howes, Eike Steinmann, and Daniel Todt. 2021. “Catch me (if you can): assessing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission via euro cash.” European Central Bank.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpops/ecb.op259~33b180d450.en.pdf
[10] Rösl, Gerhard, and Franz Seitz. 2022. “On the Stabilizing Role of Cash for Societies.” Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability.
https://cashessentials.org/app/uploads/2022/07/On-the-Stabilizing-Role-of-Cash-for-Societies.pdf
[11] National Bank of Belgium. “Restriction of the use of cash: Comments and recommendations by the NBB.”
[12] Central Bank of Ireland. “Access to Cash – Legislation.”
[13] Cash Essentials. 2022. “Spain: New Law Required Retailers to Accept Cash.”
[14] J.P. Morgan. “Would a cashless society be a better one?”
[15] Walden University. “Should We Become a Cashless Society?”
[16] Garnett, Allie Grace. 2026. “What it means to be unbanked or underbanked.” Britannica Money.