IT outage proves cash is still a vital method of payment, says Volumatic

The unexpected outage, which affected shoppers and businesses, served as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities inherent in an increasing digital economy, Volumatic top exec has said, highlighting the continuing importance of cash as a critical component in retail.

As many retail, travel and hospitality businesses struggled to make credit and debit transactions, cash emerged as a reliable and essential tool for maintaining continuity in operations. Following the outage, now being called the "largest global tech outage in history’" Volumatic is reminding businesses that “cash is not dead".

Mike Severs, Sales & Marketing Director at Volumatic says, “One of the stumbling blocks for accepting cash in retailers’ minds is the inaccurate perception of it being both expensive and difficult to process – when nothing could be further from the truth.

“Cash should not be seen as the enemy and this latest IT outage proves that cash is still a vital method of payment and is always resilient. It also proves that moving towards a fully digital payment system could be disastrous for businesses.

“Volumatic is a pro-payment choice business and while we understand that most people enjoy the convenience of tapping a card or a phone to make a payment, when it doesn’t work, consumers are left scrambling and unable to access their own money. Businesses must understand that they need to offer another way to pay to protect themselves and their customers, and with cash handling technology, accepting cash is both easy and effortless.”

Cash processing can be done quickly and simply with the help of intelligent cash handling solutions such as the Volumatic CCi, making manual counting and checking a thing of the past.

The CCi sits at POS and verifies, counts and securely stores your banknotes. This all-in-one device means notes are only touched once, minimising theft and shrinkage, and together with the CashView Enterprise cash management software, which facilitates automated reconciliation and access to third-party provider apps including the CiT provider and bank, it can offer a true end-to-end cash management solution at minimal cost and with an enviable ROI.

A new report in June by the Financial Inclusion Commission (FIC) raised the importance of cash in society. They called for the new government (prior to the General Election) to protect both cash and people’s access to cash – and not just as a back-up, but to help those who want to spend cash, rely on cash and continue to need cash.

Severs adds, “Research from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) last year showed that there is a return to many of the pre-pandemic trends in payments, including the return of smaller but more frequent cash payments. The public are realising that cash is more important than ever, so businesses must too.

“While it remains to be seen what new legislation is brought in by our new Prime Minister, it is widely felt now that the UK should introduce a new law ensuring that cash can always be used to protect us, not only from big tech failures and external threats but also big-brother type surveillance, seeing as cash also has the benefit of not requiring personal data to be shared.”

While digital payments offer convenience and efficiency, cash serves as an indispensable backup, ensuring resilience and stability in financial systems.