An alarming number of Australians have no ready access to cash in their local community, while there’s been a similar jump in those with just one option to access it.
As Australians increasingly shun cash for everyday use, banks have closed branches and shut down ATMs, or sold them to private providers, which generally charge high fees.
The Reserve Bank of Australia is particularly concerned at the growing lack of physical cash, given for about 1.5 million adults it is their primary payment method — and most commonly among older people and those on lower incomes.
The Federal Government will from 2026 force businesses to accept cash for the purchase of essential goods, with the Treasury Department consulting on how best to require this.
But new RBA research has highlighted an alarming shift in the availability of cash.
About 180 of the 2400 communities across Australia have no “cash access points” — bank or privately owned ATMs, Australia Post outlets or supermarkets or department stores that allow cash out. Another 120 communities have just one.
Cash points like ATMs being closed could force people to switch to an alternative, RBA researchers led by Anthea Faferko said in their research published in the latest edition of the bank’s Bulletin magazine. But switching to Bank at Post or another alternative was not always equal because they varied in the kinds of services offered, the customers that could be served and the costs to customers for accessing cash.
“The composition of cash access points across regions raises important considerations for assessing how easily Australians can access cash services, particularly in more remote areas where there are fewer suitable substitutes nearby,” the authors said.
“There is an increasing number of communities without face-to-face banking services, which disproportionately affects people who rely on in-person support to withdraw or deposit cash, as well as businesses that require over-the-counter deposit-taking services.”
They also concluded fees charged by private ATM operators could be a barrier to financially vulnerable people, and even deter some people from using and accessing cash, while highlighting some were inaccessible or closed for much of the day if in shopping centres, pubs or other private venues. This was also the case for accessing cash from supermarkets and other retailers.
The research follows similar work from the central bank just over two years ago that showed payments made in cash had fallen from 70 per cent in 2007 to 13 per cent in 2022. Many analysts expect that proportion has dropped further in the past two years.
According to the Australian Payments Network, by September of last year, there were 1.05 million Eftpos terminals in the country, while the number of ATMs sat at 23,693. At the height of their use, in 2017, there were more than 32,000 ATMs and 940,000 Eftpos machines.
The RBA report also notes 230 bank branch closures in the year to June 2024 — mostly in capital and major cities, but more than one-quarter in regional and remote areas.
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