Starting in 2019, densely populated cities in the United States began requiring most businesses will accept cash when they saw that both consumers and establishments preferred the benefits of electronic payment: Speed up the checkout process and reduce worry about theft.
Then, during the pandemic, restaurants and stores emphasized online ordering and digital payment to reduce interactions and risk of infection between customers and employees.
Although neither the CDC in the US nor the WHO prohibited the use of paper money, many companies -based in the cities where it is allowed- preserved the policy of only accept card payments or mobile applicationsalmost three years after the most worrying outbreaks began.
An ingenious ATM to avoid violating the rules
A growing group of New York City businesses, especially restaurants, are determined to never handle cash again.despite the ban on rejecting hard currency, and is putting a new spin on technology that has been around for decades.
Slutty Vegan, an Atlanta-based vegan food chain with locations in Harlem and Brooklyn, is among the locations that gravitated towards the facility. “reverse ATMs”machines that return prepaid cards with which customers can then pay for their dish.
It is clear that cash is no longer the absolute king of physical paymentseven before the pandemic forever disrupted consumption habits, and despite the fact that some authorities tried to force restaurants and retail stores to continue accepting bills so as not to discriminate against those who do not have bank accounts or credit cards.
As the New York Post learned, these reverse ATMs accept cash bills in exchange for an “open loop” debit card whose balance can be used anywhere Visa and MasterCard are accepted.
The spokesman for a provider that rents these machines, ReverseATM, told the newspaper that his clients range from fast food restaurants to large sports venues like Madison Square Garden. Customers are never charged a fee for debit cards, he noted.
Reverse ATMs are coming: they accept cash bills in exchange for a debit card
“Cash is not safe for our staff”
Stratis Morfogen, owner and founder of the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop restaurant, was delighted with the idea and said that he is currently in talks to bring ReverseATM machines to your locationsgiven that regards cash as “dirty” and even “dangerous.”
“Cash is dirty. We realized this during the pandemic. And it’s also not safe for our staff to have cash registers full of cash“Morfogen told NYP. “When you carry cash, you are a target for criminals, and I don’t feel comfortable having my staff like that.”
They were the prohibitions to reject cash which gave the final impetus to the creation of reverse ATMs. New York, in particular, imposed fines on businesses that did not accept bills, claiming that at least a quarter of American adults were unbanked in 2019, according to Federal Reserve data.
For Pinky Cole, the founder of Slutty Vegan, it was a real blessing. His business is now valued at close to $100 million, but when he started in 2018 he had just one truck and three meals to offer on the menu.
“We were making between $15,000 and $2,000 a day, with lines of five to six hours. Sometimes we had to have security because we were handling a lot of cash,” Cole said. “One time, we got out of the car for two minutes and someone jumped out and stole it.”
Reverse ATMs accept cash bills in exchange for an “open loop” debit card
“Now everything goes through a system”
In addition to criminals, “sticky-fingered” employees and the risk of IRS audits, Cole said he wants to avoid spread of germs through money, which is literally dirty.
For Cole, the reverse ATM was “the safest and most honorable way” to collect from his customers “because everything is documented.” “It just took a lot of stress off me. Now everything goes through a system.”
Not only the United States, but also Sweden, Brazil and China are among the countries that see their societies lean more towards digitization of moneyreported in mid-March the World Economic Forum
On its blog, the Davos Forum shared analysis suggesting a general correlation between high interest rates and less cash in circulation, while also asserting that 90% of central banks developed central bank digital currency (CBDC) and the percentage of countries that implement or pilot it has doubled in one year.
