Why Going Cashless Has Added Value in Pandemic Age: QuickTake

Do we still need cash? Humans have used all sorts of things as stores of value — rare metals, strings of shells, even jugs of whiskey. Over time the objects have become more ephemeral, from coins to paper to digital forms.

The Situation

In the U.S., debit cards first beat out cash as the top way to pay in 2018, according to a Federal Reserve survey. As the coronavirus pandemic spread in early 2020, some merchants in Seattle and Sydney tried to stop accepting cash altogether, calling it unsanitary. (Some U.S. cities have made cashless stores illegal to prevent discrimination.) ...