Moving towards a cashless society

There are two signs on both front doors of Small Bar on King Street informing customers wanting to buy their beer in here that it’s card only. ‘Yes, we only take card’, reads another sign inside beneath the plentiful list of beers, just to confirm the policy in here that has been in place since October last year.

According to Small Bar founder Bruce Gray, the bar already took around 80 per cent of their takings by card before they made the switch to 100 per cent card.

“We have seen no change in trade whatsoever, with very few people mentioning it,” said Gray, who later this year will be opening Left Handed Giant’s new brewery and brewpub in Finzels Reach – a venture that will also be card only.

Small Bar may still be in the minority of businesses in Bristol that don’t accept cash, but they are by no means the only ones, with Convoy Espresso opening in the Paintworks off Bath Road early last year as a card only cafe; Beauty Box salons in Westbury-on-Trym, Redland and Clifton also going cashless from October 2018; and the Clifton Suspension Bridge accepting contactless payments from last month.

Even a few Big Issue vendors in the city have been given iZettle card readers as part of a trial also taking place in London, Bath, Nottingham and Birmingham accepting payments via contactless technology alongside regular cash payments.

Dean Telfer using a card reader to sell the Big Issue on Gloucester Road

With contactless payments now outweighing cash transactions and a recent study showing one in five Brits never carries cash anymore, consumer behaviour is clearly changing.

But not everybody is convinced. When Small Bar went cashless, the Bristol Post ran a survey on its website, with 53 per cent of readers stating that they would not be willing to go cashless, 36 per cent happy to go cashless and 11 per cent not minding. “Stupid hipster bullshit,” wrote one Post reader in response to the news.

Gray saw first-hand the benefits of a hospitality business going cashless when he was in Amsterdam last year. While in a cafe he watched the interactions between the team and the customers, and realised that he could bring the idea back to Bristol.

“When I founded Small Bar back in 2013 it was with a real desire to create an environment where our team felt rewarded, motivated and that they worked within a bar that genuinely valued their wellbeing,” Gray explained.

“Accepting cash into our business creates them hours of monotonous work counting change morning and night, cashing up end of evening, not to mention the additional security risks we placed on their shoulders by holding large volumes of cash on site overnight. You add to that the additional stress around handling cash over a busy bar and it seemed like we could make a real difference to their working lives by moving wholly across to card.

“We used to be a position where it was more expensive for us to process card transactions than handle cash but that’s no longer the case. When we saw the levelling of costs and the increasing of our customers’ desire to pay by card it didn’t take a long conversation to make the decision to move completely to card.”

Gray told Bristol24/7 that he has faced far heavier criticism at Small Bar for never pouring pints in the bar since opening in 2013 than for switching to card-only.

“I’d like to think that people have came to know us and love the bar and realise that the things we do come from a desire to do good things and because of that they continue to support us.”

Handwritten signs inside Small Bar remind customers that the business is cashless

At Convoy Espresso, the business has been cashless since day one for a number of reasons according to manager Hannah Bullen, including that Paintworks does not have a cash point, there is no bank nearby for the staff to be able to do banking, it saves a lot of time and it is a lot safer not to keep cash on the premises.

“For us, this choice was not about what everyone else is doing or about current trends but was always about safety, convenience and making Convoy accessible to the residents and professionals in this creative hub that doesn’t have a cashpoint,” Bullen told Bristol24/7.

“It works really well at Convoy and for the most part our customers are very understanding. Very few people are unable or don’t want to pay with card. And more often than not people ask why we do it this way and after we’ve explained they are really positive and it’s the start of a great conversation.”

Across town outside the Co-Op on Gloucester Road, Big Issue seller Dean Telfer, 38, said that before he was given a contactless card reader, he had noticed his sales had gone down due to fewer people carrying cash.

“About 90 per cent of my regular customers have to go to the cash machine to get money out to buy the magazine from me,” Telfer said. “I have noticed that my sales have gone down, with less and less people carrying cash on them. I am glad that I can now offer my customers the option to pay by contactless. I hope I’ll see my sales go up as a result.”

Big Issue managing director Russell Blackman added: “We have long-recognised that we are operating in an increasingly cashless society. Big issue vendors are microentrepreneurs, effectively running their own small businesses, so understandably there are many who are keen to respond to market forces and offer their customers an alternative to cash.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is now accepting contactless payments for the first time

Contactless payment technology was introduced to the Clifton Suspension Bridge at the end of January, with bridge master Trish Johnson saying it was coordinated with the help of NMI with “without any trouble or delays”.

More than four million vehicle cross the bridge every year, with drivers now able to pay via contactless as well as with coins.

Johnson said: “With users carrying less cash and contactless payments becoming the UK’s most popular and fastest payment method, it was of utmost importance to the Trust to give our users the choice to use their preferred payments option and speeding up payments on the bridge.

“Adding new payment technology to an existing system can be a complex process which requires many parties. We are delighted to have worked with NMI, a global payments leader based right at our doorstep, who coordinated the entire process and ensured we launched without any trouble or delays.”

Read more: New toll houses for Clifton Suspension Bridge

Main photo of Ri Meredith and Hannah Bullen inside Convoy Espresso by Colin Ross