I popped into London one evening this week. Nothing remarkable, you may think, but it was my first trip to the capital where not only did I not even have to think about using cash, I didn’t even need a bank card.
I jumped on a train at Ebbsfleet and paid for my ticket through an app on my phone.
I then used the bank cards stored on my phone on the gates of the Underground.
As we all know, when you have 100 people behind you in the queue at a busy London Tube station, what you most definitely don’t want to be is the buffoon who can’t get the gates to open due to ticketing incompetence.
Fortunately, I was not confronted by a chorus of tuts and momentary shame – it all worked perfectly.
By the time I reached my destination – a football ground for which my ticket was stored on my ageing smartphone – I strolled into an area which was proudly declaring itself ‘cash-free’.
Food and beer was purchased with a tap of my device, again, and a coin or note did not physically enter the equation.
By the time I returned to the delights of Ebbsfleet International and jumped in my car to escape to the east of the county, I stopped only at the Tollgate Services where, you guessed it, my phone did all the heavy lifting.
Proof, if ever proof was needed, that cold hard, physical, cash is no longer king. It’s only clinging to its VIP status by its slippery polymer-coated fingers.
I have nothing against the folding stuff and always remain acutely aware that if someone swipes my phone I’m completely up a certain waterway without a certain implement.
But then I could have had my wallet lifted from my back pocket and find myself in a similar predicament. Plus the money inside would be snaffled quicker than you could say ‘well, at least my phone needs my ugly mug to unlock the banking apps’.
So, from a security point of view, I felt safer than whipping a tenner out.
As it was, I finished the night with no annoying low denomination coins weighing down my pockets, destined, most likely, never to be used, and with a very precise record of my spending – to the penny – courtesy of the banking app on my phone.
I know it’s not for everyone and I know people even older than I (and I’m the wrong side of 50) struggle to get their heads around it all, but crikey it made everything an absolute breeze. If you haven’t already and cling to cash like a religion, just for convenience, it’s worth adapting. And, let’s be honest, payment through smartphone use is only going to be more widespread. Apple Pay and Google Pay are the future. Like it or not.
Not even a few years ago did I think even a bank card, with all its swanky tap-and-go technology, would become so potentially obsolete. It’s become the CD of the monetary world. Cash, to extend the metaphor, most definitely vinyl.
Cards are still necessary for online purchases – but all the details live on your phone now. You rarely actually need the card itself.
It doesn’t seem that long ago it was quite something to pay just by entering your PIN and not having to sign for everything. Or, for that matter, use a cheque.
Poor old King Charles – his face appearing on our currency is going to be one probably rarely noticed.
