This year was predicted by finance professionals to be the year of a cashless society in the UK. Although we have taken a large jump towards cashless with post-Covid living seeing many people refuse cash due to germs, 2026 feels for many to be too soon to stop looking after our pennies.
A cashless society would mean coins and notes would become obsolete and financial transactions would happen digitally relying on bank transfers, mobile and card payments and banking apps.
Graphs produced by Yahoo Finance showed that 2026 would be the year cash could become obsolete due to the reduction in the handling of money and the push from the government to move towards digital payments, increasing the contactless amount and digitalising travel payments
However figures show Brits still withdrew £76 billion in 2025. LINK, the UK’s largest ATM network, says notes and coins remain vital for budgeting and every day spending.
Many businesses rely on cash payments. Annalise Flanagan a small business owner of Mutleys Batches needs cash to keep her job alive.
She said: “Most of my customers are old people and lot of them don’t actually have phones with bank apps on them so they only carry cash.”
Annalise’s demographic is an example of communities that rely on cash to get by. The use of mobile banking makes many people uncomfortable and disallows a level of financial freedom.
Cash also helps people in vulnerable situations have another option.
Another business owner Grace Elliott believes cash is essential.
She said: “I think that there are too many people that still need to use cash including vulnerable adults and vulnerable women that are trying to move away from abusive relationship.
“I have a very mixed demographic of customers in my shop; I still have clients that choose to pay by cheque because that’s what they understand that’s what they feel safe with there are more people that don’t have access to computers than is reasonable to expect everyone to go cashless.”
The Bank of England has said that while it is likely that alternative digital payment methods will become ever more widely accepted and used it is unlikely that cash will die out any time soon.
@merseynewslive 2026 was predicted to be the year of a cashless UK However many small businesses need cash to stay afloat #2026#cashless Photo credits: UnSplash
