{"id":619912,"date":"2026-04-20T20:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/619912\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T20:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:45:09","slug":"in-charts-australias-relationship-with-cash-over-the-past-two-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/619912\/","title":{"rendered":"In charts: Australia’s relationship with cash over the past two decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the global financial crisis, the ubiquity of internet banking and the advent of contactless payments \u2014 cash was king.<\/p>\n

More than two-thirds of transactions made in Australia were by cash in 2007.<\/p>\n

In 2025, it was about 15 per cent.<\/p>\n

But according to The Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2025 Consumer Payments Survey, for the first time in decades, cash use has increased, albeit slightly.<\/p>\n

Cash use reached its lowest ebb in 2022, falling by more than 50 per cent from the previous reporting period in 2019.<\/p>\n

Coinciding with the small rise in cash payments was an increase in the amount of in-person transactions, which lifted from 16 per cent in 2022 to 19 per cent in 2025.<\/p>\n

Payments under $10 continued to be the most popular size of cash transaction.<\/p>\n

But the volume of these transactions is still just a sliver of what it was 20 years ago, when 95 per cent of payments under $10 were made with cash.<\/p>\n

What are Australians spending their cash on?<\/p>\n

The survey found that cash use either stabilised or increased across every consumer spending category.<\/p>\n

Leisure has moved to top spot on cash spending ahead of food, retail and transport, which has seen the largest fall of any other spending category since 2007.<\/p>\n

The report authors highlight this is likely due to the use of contactless payments, growth in ride-share services, and the use of digital payments in most public transport systems.<\/p>\n

“Australians have consistently used cash more frequently to pay for leisure,” the survey reads.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth announced prior to the last election it would require businesses<\/a> to accept cash as payment for groceries, fuel and other essentials.<\/p>\n

Prior to the policy, which came into effect at the beginning of the year, about 94 per cent of businesses in the country accepted cash payments.<\/p>\n

At present, Australia has one cash distributor, Armaguard, after it acquired rival Prosegur in 2023.<\/p>\n

Last year the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) allowed the Australian Banking Association’s members to collaborate ways to ensure cash could continue to flow around the country in the event Armaguard was no longer able to do the job, giving them until December 2026 to come up with a solution.<\/p>\n

How frequently are Australians using cash?<\/p>\n

The report found around half of Australians use cash on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n

The report identified 1.5 million Australians as ‘high cash users’, meaning they pay with cash for 80 per cent of their transactions.<\/p>\n

They made up about 7 per cent of respondents, which was about the same as the previous reporting period in 2022.<\/p>\n

“The share of respondents who did not use cash at all in the survey week was relatively stable between 2022 and 2025, at around 50 per cent,” the survey read.<\/p>\n

But when survey authors asked respondents about their cash use outside of the survey period, only 13 per cent said they never used cash.<\/p>\n

The survey found people who used cash as a larger portion of their transactions tended to be older, and in lower-income households.<\/p>\n

It found about 10 per cent of respondents over 65 used cash for all their transactions in 2025.<\/p>\n

Report authors highlighted cash was integral for vulnerable communities who had less payment options.<\/p>\n

They also said cash was important for those who struggled to gain access online banking such as those living in remote areas including First Nations communities.<\/p>\n

The downward trend of cash use was starting to reverse across demographics.<\/p>\n

“The share of payments made with cash was stable not only among high cash users, but also among respondents of different ages, incomes and locations over the three years to 2025,” the report read.<\/p>\n

“This contrasts with the results from previous surveys, which showed a trend decline in the use of cash across all demographic groups.”<\/p>\n

How do Australians feel about cash?<\/p>\n

About a third of survey respondents said they would face hardship or a major inconvenience if they were not able to withdraw cash.<\/p>\n

Around 20 per cent said they used cash to avoid paying surcharges.<\/p>\n

In March, the RBA announced it would remove surcharges <\/a>on debit and credit cards, which will come into effect on October 1.<\/p>\n

The report found about two in five respondents carry cash in their wallets for emergencies.<\/p>\n

It also found three quarters of those surveyed held cash in their wallets in 2025 with the median held around $65.<\/p>\n

“Suggesting that they could cover a typical in-person payment during a short outage affecting electronic payments by using the cash in their wallets,” the report read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the global financial crisis, the ubiquity of internet banking and the advent of contactless payments \u2014 cash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,8879,105675,164,300564,187,7054,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-619912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cash","12":"tag-contactless-payment","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-legal-tender","15":"tag-money","16":"tag-rba","17":"tag-reserve-bank-of-australia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}