It happens every once in a while. A power outage ceases all but non-essential activity.
Businesses and their customers know not much can be done until electricity is restored. It’s an inconvenience suffered on both sides.
But what happens when the lights stay on and the only thing not working is the point of sale debit machine?
An Internet outage spanning a whole business day for some was more than just an inconvenience last Thursday. It actually slowed commerce in town.
Affected businesses were still able to provide their wares and services but getting paid for them proved nearly impossible for some.
“Nobody carries cash anymore,” was a popular refrain.
It’s unfortunate that the so-called convenience of tapping and swiping really is turning us into a cashless society.
Many polls and surveys in the last few years have documented the change in payment methods.
The majority of Canadians are going “card first” when it comes to making payments, according to a Leger survey conducted this year.
In the survey of 1,566 Canadian consumers, an overwhelming 79 per cent of Canadians were now card-first buyers, who typically try to pay with a debit or credit card first when making purchases.
Further, two in five Canadians (41 per cent) described themselves as card-only buyers, who never use cash to pay for their purchases. In fact, three out of four Canadians (75 per cent) reported carrying less cash than in the past, with an average of $46.50 in their wallets at the time of the survey. And they admit they haven’t visited a bank or an ATM to withdraw cash in more than two weeks (17 days to be exact).
But on days like last Thursday, it really reminds us that cash really is still king.
As digital options for payment evolve, let’s not forget that.
Those not in the know blamed the disruption on unreliable, outdated infrastructure.
No fibre optic broadband service could have stopped what happened on Thursday.
A third party cut a line, simple as that.
So unless we can get human error out of the equation, I think we’ll rue the day we become a cashless society.
Nothing is foolproof. But cash comes pretty close.
Lea Smaldon is Mountain View Publishing's managing editor.
