THE CASHLESS BANK — — Not an Oxymoron; a 21st-Century Reality

I have returned with the promised follow-up story to The Pencil-Less Bank. Here is another true tale from your 20th Century Dinosaur, the woman who foolishly thinks there is money in…a bank.

I am aware that all my banking could be accomplished online, including depositing a check that I was taking to the bank as this story begins. However, I had just moved in with my sister out of State from mine, and since I was going to be there for a year, I wanted to familiarize myself with the actual bank building and its employees. It was also the first of many monthly deposits I would be making, and I wanted to be sure everything went smoothly. Thus, the trip to the bank building.

As we drove up to the bank, my sister said to me — “You’re depositing a check, right? You’re not depositing cash?”

“Uh, no, it’s a check, not cash. Why?”

“This is a cashless bank. They don’t have any cash. You can’t give them cash. They can’t give you change in cash.”

I let that bit of information sink into my “made in 1948” brain, which could not seem to process it. No cash in a bank? That’s like no food in a restaurant. No shoes in a shoe store. Why no cash in a bank? To cut down on robberies? That would surely do it.

Contrary to the popular belief by my Millennial nieces and nephews, and surely by my Gen Z great-nieces and great-nephews, I am NOT clueless as to how modern society and technology work. I have run my own websites for 15 years. I pay bills and do most of my banking online. I write online, using Internet Writing Platforms with somewhat ease.

I am also aware that the world is going “cashless”, and that most transactions are made with Smartphone apps and tapping credit cards on a machine.

Despite those bits of knowledge, the world of technology is advancing too fast for my brain to keep up. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND the concept of a cashless bank. What if I want to (GASP!) use CASH at a store or restaurant? Especially a restaurant, since restaurants are now charging up to a 3% transaction fee to use a credit card.

The damn cashless bank doesn’t even have a cash-dispensing ATM. That’s a cashless system too. Don’t ask this befuddled old lady to explain how that works. You can try to decipher what Google says about it on your own by clicking What are Cashless ATM’s?

Back to my conversation with my sister outside of the cashless bank. I sputtered and grumbled, but assured her that I understood I would see no dollar bills or coins in the bank.

I exited the car and walked up to the bank door, where I was greeted with a huge sign: THIS IS A CASHLESS BANK. WE DO NOT HAVE ANY CASH. YOU MUST USE A CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD.

Use a credit card for what, I wondered. I wasn’t going to buy anything in there, and what good was a debit card if they didn’t have any money to give me?

As I walked into the bank, Mr. Walmart Greeter (You know, the same type of guy from my Pencil-less Bank Story), ran up to me, not to ask how he could help me, but to inform me — you guessed it — that they were a cashless bank and what business did I wish to conduct? Certainly not anything involving cash, he hoped.

Trying my level best to rein in my sarcasm, I asked him if I could deposit a check.

Unlike the pencil-less bank that had a few teller stations, there was no need for any of those antiquated spaces in United Cashless Bank, so he left me standing in the middle of the empty lobby while he scurried off with my check.

I honestly expected him to return empty-handed with the admonition to check my account online for a receipt, but to my surprise, he returned with a PAPER receipt for my deposit.

I exited the bank, shaking my head, still trying to process the idea of a bank without money. Settled back into the car, I told my sister that there was no need to waste gas driving to the “bank” anymore. I was savvy enough to know how to use my IPAD camera to deposit a check from the comfort of home.

I do understand that one of the reasons for eliminating cash in world financial transactions is to reduce the incidences of massive fraud. Any transaction conducted in cyberspace is traceable. Cash is not. I get that.

However, maybe the untraceable nature of cash is why I would like the option of using it. I’m not a money launderer. I don’t have any money to wash. I’m not an embezzler, schemer, con artist, or a harborer of off-shore multimillion $$$ accounts. I’m just an old lady who likes to fool herself that there’s a vestige of privacy left in my life, so every financial transaction I make doesn’t have to be permanently etched in cyberspace. I like to use cash to occasionally give credence to that lie. However, it appears that my cash-handling days are running out — quickly.

This story is a small sample of the saga of a 21st-century world going cashless (and pencil-less).

If you have the time, but more importantly, the desire, to explore how widespread this cashless phenomenon is, how it is permeating every aspect of society and our lives, and the broader implications of its utilization, I invite you to do the research and write an in-depth article explaining it. The Internet is filled with information, articles, and examples for you to use for research.

Sorry, but I have neither the interest nor ambition to write it. I am worn out from trying to teach a 35-year-old how to use a pencil and getting myself adjusted to a bank with no cash in it.

Resources:

How a Cashless Society Will Impact the World

Cashless Societies — Which Countries are making the switch?

How close are we to a cashless society

©2022 Joan Gershman All Rights Reserved

Originally published in Medium.com Publication Crow's Feet