[Vertigo]

As Dave says, for better or worse, the days of cash are numbered. Whether it's in 10, 50 or 100 years cash will inevitably disappear. If you try and stem the tide you're just going to get your feet wet.

The question for me is how much is that going to cost to people taking payments. I believe some sort of regulation of cashless charges is required. By this I mean that at present if a shop takes cash they get all the money, if they take a cheque there is a chance they will have to pay for it (some may have free banking but there is usually a limit on how many free cheques they can take in a month) and if they take a debit or credit card they will certainly have to pay for it.

The key thing here is that currently it is the shop owner's choice whether or not to take cheques or cards and pay the premium for doing so. In the future with cash gone they will no longer have that choice and will have to pay the premium. To make matters worse, the bigger your business the lower you can get that premium to be. Is this fair to small businesses? Of course not, but that is the way it is. I believe that the commission taken by the banks should be regulated and fixed so everyone is paying the same.

Cash gave a relatively level playing field, other types payments are far from level. And this needs to be fixed.