MATTHEW PANTELIS:
We’re talking about cash and the federal government to look at having essential businesses like supermarkets, groceries, wherever you get those medicines, fuel; so pharmacies, banks obviously, and petrol stations included, along with some utilities and health services. It’ll be a regulated thing, not legislated, so the government can make changes easily if it needs to moving forward. And I think it’s a good move. Now, you shouldn’t really have to, in my view, regulate or mandate that cash is essential. It should always be considered essential and if we need to regulate it well, so be it, because there’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with a bank that doesn’t want to handle money. That’s the pub without beer scenario. It’s just crazy. Stephen Jones, Assistant Treasurer on the line. Mr. Jones, good morning.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good to be back with you.
PANTELIS:
Yeah, likewise. So, this to take place from the 1st of January 26, so just over a year from now. Good move I think, if that’s what we’ve got to do, then let’s do it.
JONES:
Yeah, that’s right. The right to use cash. We’re going to make legal tender legal again. We know that the majority of Australians have moved to cashless payments for the majority of retail transactions. But there’s still one and a half million Australians who are using cash for about 80 per cent of their transactions and we want to protect that right, sending a clear signal to business that the no cash accepted sign out the front won’t be acceptable, particularly for essential goods. So, your petrol, your groceries, your pharmacy, these sorts of things. People have still got to be able to use cash if that is their preference. We know the majority of Australians won’t, but for those who do, we’ll protect their right to do so.
PANTELIS:
Was legal tender ever illegal tender?
JONES:
No, it never was. Well, it’s legal tender in a very technical sense, that a dollar means a dollar means a dollar that 20 dollars means $20, and 50 cents means 50 cents, and it’s recognised as a unit of value. But what the law doesn’t currently say is that everyone must accept 2 50‑cent pieces for a dollar transaction. So, what we’re doing is ensuring that you can’t refuse cash for those essential transactions.
PANTELIS:
I don’t imagine there’d be any objections to this from anyone, but why only those businesses? Why not all businesses having to use cash? If cash is around, will they have to accept it?
JONES:
We want to protect the interests of certain small businesses and some of the hybrid online‑offline businesses, some of whom have gone to cashless. And the problem you have when you’re regulating those sorts of things, you get all these unintended consequences. So, we want to make sure that we don’t start with failure by bringing in a whole heap of people who frankly aren’t a part of the problem. But it’s your grocery store, it’s your pharmacy, it’s your petrol station, it’s the places that we go to do the majority of our retail business and that’s the stuff that we’re trying to bring in here. Not to create a burden where one doesn’t need to be but to give people the right to use cash if that’s what they want to do.
PANTELIS:
Absolutely. Now, banks that don’t deal in cash and some branches don’t, is the mandate to include any branch having to deal in cash.
JONES:
That’s what we’re working through over the next couple of months to ensure that we can find, announce it, see what we flush out as a result of this. And there’ll be things like that that we know that will flush out over the coming months so we can work through what we need to do in our regulation.
PANTELIS:
Because, you know, what it comes down to for the ordinary person is, and particularly the older person whose local branch in a suburb might not now deal in cash – and I’m thinking ANZ, particularly because they do this, I don’t know about the others – and that means that person might have to find public transport or drive or whatever they have to do to a busier location. Which is generally the case, which doesn’t have the parking nearby, might be on a main street in a suburban area and they’ve got to park further away and then make their way slowly to the bank branch and then find themselves because that is so busy. There’s a queue of a dozen people in front of them and they’ve got to sit down somewhere because they’re older and frailer and wait to be served for up to half an hour, which is the experience in the ANZ. And I’ve lived that with my mum, to have to do this. And it just frustrates the heck out of me that what used to be for her on her own and easy experience, now needs me to drive and drop her at the front and all the rest of it. So, that needs to change. They really need to take some responsibility as a corporate citizen.
JONES:
Yeah, I hear you loud and clear Matt, and I agree. We know what the direction of travel is, by the way. We know that more and more Australians are doing more and more stuff from their mobile phone or online, but that’s not everyone. And we want to ensure as these big economic shifts occur, we don’t leave people behind and we still maintain the capacity for them to do their business in the way that they can and need and should be able to do. So, separately we’re looking at what we can do to ensure that everyone has access to bank branches and face‑to‑face services. Have more to say about that in the future, in the near future. But this one today I think will be well received by consumers.
PANTELIS:
I think so, yeah.
JONES:
It’s a big one that comes up all the time whenever I do my regional travel, senior citizens consults, or anything, all around the country. One that comes up time and time again.
PANTELIS:
This is on the back of the regional inquiry into banks, isn’t it, surely?
JONES:
Yes. A good job of work was done by the Senate committee in the inquiry into banking services. Quite separately from that I’ve been looking at what needs to be done across a range of areas to get access to cash, to have cash distribution secured throughout the economy. You know, 3 years ago we used to have several cash distribution companies. We now have one. We’ve got to make sure that that’s viable and we’ve got to make sure that it gets cash into supermarkets, into banks, and other businesses around the country as well. So, challenging, not impossible. But we’ve got to set the direction and set the rights in place for everyday Australians.
PANTELIS:
Absolutely. Now we talked before about the credit card fees or debit card fees when you make transactions. So, that’s on the cards as well as happening, getting rid of that?
JONES:
Yeah, you can see we’re trying to round up all of these things, Matt. So, the tap‑and‑go fees. There used to be a time when your debit card was treated differently to your credit card. A little while back now, the network providers changed to a blended rate. So, debit card was treated the same as credit card. And you’re paying to access your own money through a debit card. We don’t think that’s right. Debit card for many Australians is the new cash and we don’t think they should be charged for accessing it. So, working through that over the next couple of months with much more in place for next year.
PANTELIS:
I don’t know if this is doable or not, but one of the reasons people have left cash I believe is the lack of accessibility to it. So, ATM’s. Now these days, okay, you’re at the checkout, you can ask the teller for cash and you get, you know, some. But the ease of going to an ATM which were everywhere and I understand the cost of maintaining them, et cetera, but surely we need more of them and I don’t know if that’s mandateable. But if you’ve got more ATMs and you’ve got more cash, which comes to the heart of what the issue has been, people have not used cash, I think, because ATMs are harder and harder to find.
JONES:
Yeah, agreed. And banks largely divested themselves of a lot of these services a few years ago. Looking at all of those things like bundle it all up into access to traditional banking services, and it should be the case that wherever you are throughout Australia, you’re able to get access to basic banking services, whether it’s online, through an ATM, through a bank branch, through access to cash services. All of these things need to be available to Australians right throughout the country.
PANTELIS:
Absolutely. All right, we’ll see where it ends up. Stephen Jones, thank you for your time.
JONES:
Always good to talk to you.