The Cash Welcome group has slammed Ampol\u2019s latest expansion plans, calling it \u201cun-Australian\u201d as they no longer accept legal tender. <\/p>\n
In a move announced earlier this month, petroleum giant Ampol is preparing to triple its network of discounted and unstaffed chain U-Go services across Australia.<\/p>\n
Cash Welcome founder Jason Bryce labelled the move \u201cun-Australian\u201d because it made it harder for locals to pay with cash. <\/p>\n
\u201cAmpol is not a small business,\u201d he wrote in his latest email.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmpol is able to accept cash \u2013 but doesn\u2019t want to accept cash.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s, frankly (in our humble opinion) un-Australian because it excludes people, limits our payment choice, our ability to control our budget and our personal information.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a statement to NewsWire, Ampol confirmed it could not accept cash, but pointed out it allowed everyday Australians to save at the fuel pump.<\/p>\n
\u201cU-Go is an unstaffed model which by keeping overhead costs low offers Australian motorists significant savings and quality fuel through a convenient pay-at-the-pump experience,\u201d an Ampol spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing recent constructive engagement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Ampol has received a five-year cash mandate exemption for its existing U-Go sites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ampol said it is worth noting U-Go had never accepted cash due to the format of the site. <\/p>\n
At the start of June, the ACCC approved Ampol\u2019s acquisition of EG Australia, which would add about 470 servos to its footprint for $1.1bn.<\/p>\n
This is after divesting 41 sites from EG\u2019s network. <\/p>\n
About 125 of these newly acquired sites will be converted into the U-Go format.<\/p>\n
Ampol currently operates 46 U-Go sites nationwide and 576 service stations under its main Ampol brand. <\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s cash acceptance mandate officially commenced on January 1, with the mandate legally requiring certain fuel retailers and grocery supermarkets to accept physical cash for in-person transactions of $500 or less.<\/p>\n
Mr Bryce said Ampol had just been granted a giant exemption from the government\u2019s new cash mandate by the ACCC, which stated large businesses must offer both cash and credit payments on essential items.<\/p>\n
The current cash mandate includes fuel retailers because petrol is defined as an essential item.<\/p>\n
Small businesses with turnover under $10m per year are exempt from this mandate. <\/p>\n
\u201cAmpol sells an essential product and is a huge corporation so there is no good reason to be allowed to reject cash,\u201d Mr Bryce said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe cash mandate only applies to fuel retailers and supermarkets so Ampol is blowing a giant hole in Australia\u2019s cash mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cash Welcome group has slammed Ampol\u2019s latest expansion plans, calling it \u201cun-Australian\u201d as they no longer accept…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,115817],"class_list":["post-761419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-newswire-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761419","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=761419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}