When our team strikes up a conversation with event organisers, one of biggest reservations that they have is ‘but my customers don’t want to go cashless’. For people who think this is the case, here are a few facts that may encourage you to think differently.
Fact 1. Consumers are moving away from using cash.
People are preferring to be cashless – be that payment by card or a cashless system. Simply going to a pub on a Friday night or your local supermarket, the number of people handing over cash for their pint (of beer or milk) is tiny.
And it’s not just casual observation, the stats back it up. Sweden is pretty much a cashless society, with only 1% of all transactions being with cash. ATMs are disappearing from the UK at a rate of 300 a month, only 34% of transactions are using cash in the UK and the Reserve Bank of Australia predicts that Australia will be cashless in less than a decade.
Fact 2. Cashless is already being used every day by all demographics and ages. In London alone, over 2 million times a day.
There are many examples of cashless systems being incredibly successful – but can it get better than TfL’s Oyster Card?
One of the most incredibly successful cashless systems of all time is TfL’s Oyster. Every day, an average of 2 million journeys take place across London using their cashless system. As someone who has lived in London for the last 20 years, I’m proud to say that it is one of the most diverse cities in the world. People of all ages, all nationalities and different languages are happy to adopt the system for travel.
Fact 3. The numbers of consumers saying ‘yes’ to cashless is growing.
33% of Europeans & Americans would go cashless if they could (Ipsos survey for ING, 2017)
78% of Europeans & Americans are planning to use less cash in the coming years (Ipsos Survey for ING, 2017)
73% of festival goers would prefer to use cashless (Tappit survey 2018 of 800 festival goers)
Fact 4. Consumers certainly say ‘yes’ to the benefits of going cashless.
64% festival goers are concerned about theft (Durham Uni, Guardian 2018)
84% festival goers hate queuing more than festival toilets (Tappit festival survey 2018)
68% event goers want their payment service to be secure (Tappit festival survey 2018)
The upside of these concerns is that cashless offers the solution. When customers welcome the benefits, then education and adoption become so much easier – making marketing the solution an easy task.
Fact 5. Less cash is an inevitability.
The big question is how event organisers choose to react. The choice is ultimately between using a cashless solution or using a bank’s contactless solution. Let’s quickly summarise the options:
Option 1: Cashless: The system that gives you the data, the insight, doesn’t need wifi and is quick and easy to set up.
Or
Option 2: Contactless: The system that does require wifi and isn’t at all easy to set up.
We hope you would put your money on cashless.
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