A mechanic is receiving praise on social media for urging customers to pay in cash.
A poster spotted at the Home or Away Mechanical Services store in the south-east Queensland town of Loganlea has attracted widespread praise after being posted on a popular Facebook page Cash is King.
“Yes, we accept cash,” the sign read.
“We do not support a cashless society.”
The poster listed the things the company supported, such as pocket money, community cash purchases (Marketplace and Gumtree), garage sales, cash in cards for Christmas and financial autonomy.
“We are a small business paying around $400 per month in EFTPOS fees, bank fees and rental charges for the EFTPOS machine and we request that you pay in cash if possible,” the sign read.
‘This will benefit ordinary working people, not the big banks.
“Let’s not allow Australia to become more and more controlled – we want a cashless society.”
A sign seen at the Home or Away mechanics service shop in the town of Loganlea, south-east Queensland
The poster received many praises.
“Good for them,” one person wrote.
“Maybe I should change mechanics?” said another.
“I love this. I want to print it for my living room,” read another comment.
“Why take away something that has worked for so many years?” asked another person.
“I support the use of cash, it is legal tender, but I will not support digital currency,” wrote another in agreement.
Last month’s massive tech outage due to a faulty software update by US firm CrowdStike was seized upon by many to show the dangers of going cashless, even though some experts say it is inevitable.
Banks, businesses, airlines, broadcasters and government agencies were thrown into chaos when Microsoft operating systems went down in Australia and around the world.
Denied the option of digital payments, supermarkets, as well as retail and hospitality businesses, were forced to accept cash only, while “blue screens of death” even forced some establishments to close on July 19.
The southeast Queensland mechanic said he was shelling out about $400 a month to accept digital payments.
RMIT University finance academic Angel Zhong has previously suggested Australia will become a functionally cashless society by 2030, ahead of the Commonwealth Bank’s forecast of 2026.
Functionally cashless, he explains, means that digital payments account for more than 90 percent of total payments, although cash would retain its value and not disappear.
Its calculation is based on data on consumer preferences from the RBA.
The latest survey for 2022, published in June 2023, shows that cash accounted for 13 percent of total payments, up from 69 percent in 2007 and 27 percent in 2019.
Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock warned in December that declining cash circulation was putting pressure on the economics of ATMs and the physical movement of notes and coins.
He even suggested that companies could start passing those costs on to consumers by charging extra for using cash.
Home or Away Mechanical Services has been contacted for comment.