
Some 52% of people ‘have recently been somewhere refusing or discouraging cash'
More than half (52%) of people said they had been somewhere during the previous two months that had not accepted or had discouraged the use of cash – and 56% said this was an inconvenience to them.
The research was commissioned by cash access and ATM network Link.
It found that contactless via cards was the most preferred payment method among people surveyed, with 40% choosing this option.
But nearly two-thirds (65%) of people said that physical coins and banknotes gave them confidence that 'nothing would go wrong', such as a payment outage.
Cash remains particularly popular among people aged 55 and over, with 25% preferring cash compared with 8% of 25 to 34-year-olds, the survey indicated.
Supermarkets and convenience stores are the most popular places where people have spent cash, the research indicated.
Nearly seven in 10 (69%) people surveyed said they had used cash to pay for something in the previous two weeks.
Three-quarters (75%) of people surveyed said they could easily make their day-to-day payments by phone or card.
But 85% said they worry that a cashless society could exclude vulnerable groups, and 71% see cash as vital for personal freedom.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of people said they are unlikely to go completely cashless in the next 12 months.
One in 12 (8%) said they lead 'cashless' lives.
Graham Mott, Link director of strategy said: 'Cash remains a critical part of the UK's payment landscape. This research shows that, while digital payments are growing, cash continues to play a vital role in financial inclusion, budgeting and consumer choice.'
YouGov carried out the survey among more than 2,200 people across the UK in June.
Earlier this month, it emerged that the Bank of England will monitor cash acceptance on an ongoing basis, following a Treasury Committee report which raised concerns about the future of coins and banknotes.
In its response to the report, the Government said the Bank had committed to continuing to include an additional question on cash acceptance in its survey of consumers, after it was introduced in January.
The committee has highlighted how UK businesses and organisations can choose to refuse cash with no legal duty to accommodate customers' varying needs.
Its report, published earlier this year, warned that a lack of action to tackle declining cash acceptance could lead to a two-tier society with the most vulnerable bearing the cost. MPs called for improved monitoring.
The committee highlighted that vulnerable groups, such as people with learning disabilities, domestic abuse victims and the elderly, could be particularly affected.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Telegraph
17 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain
Robot bricklayers are set to be trialled on British construction sites amid warnings of a major labour shortage in the house building industry. The machines, developed by Dutch company Monumental, use two mechanical arms that dispense mortar and lay bricks at a similar pace to a human. That is equivalent to roughly 500 bricks per robot in a typical eight-hour shift, but they can be programmed to work around the clock if required – albeit under human supervision. It represents one potential solution to help ease a chronic shortage of brickies in Britain's construction industry, with experts warning that at least 25,000 more are needed to meet the Government's house-building plans. In the Netherlands, Monumental's machines have already built facades for dozens of houses as well as canal-supporting walls in housing developments. They can construct straight-lined brick walls and some cornering. Now, Monumental is preparing to trial the machines in the UK for the first time with London bricklaying contractor Galostar, a company that has previously worked on residential projects as well as bigger schemes such as the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, and the capital's Sadler's Wells Theatre. Tony Chapman, Galostar's managing director, said the tests were expected to begin next month. They will initially focus on whether the robots can be successfully adapted to British standards and can handle being deployed on scaffolding. He said: 'We don't think they [the machines] will ever completely replace brickies, but they can certainly help with the skills shortages we are dealing with. 'From our point of view it also helps because the robots don't need breaks, they don't take time off, and so if you have several of them you will know exactly what your output is going to be.' One person can supervise two of the machines at once but the supervisor does not need to be a qualified bricklayer, meaning it should be easier to keep construction sites manned, said Salar al Khafaji, Monumental's co-founder. He said: 'You just contract us to do work, and we will come with our machines to do the work, instead of a bunch of humans. 'Your labour pool will now be much bigger, and you can work multiple shifts.' He expects to charge about the same as the going rate for a human brickie, or around £1 per brick. Monumental says the robots can also be programmed to lay different brick configurations and patterns. It potentially opens the door for a return to the more elaborate styles of brickwork beloved by Victorian and Edwardian builders that are considered too labour-intensive by large-volume housebuilders today. 'Today, if you want to ask for a very nice, patterned facade with two brick colours, you'll get an outrageously expensive quote, because it's quite hard and it will slow the masons down,' Mr al Khafaji added. 'But this is exactly the kind of thing that robots excel at – you just enter it once, and our system allows you to have a mixed supply of coloured bricks and different types of bricks. 'And we won't charge you more, because it's not more expensive. So you'll be able to bring some of those things back into the industry. 'We're doing a canal wall in Amsterdam soon with really elaborate patterns – bricks sticking out, that sort of thing. It's kind of crazy, I'm very excited about it.' Mr al Khafaji is a former executive at Palantir, the US defence tech giant co-founded by PayPal billionaire and Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel. He said he wanted to apply his expertise in software and machine learning to help solve problems in the construction industry, which has long been viewed by economists as a laggard. He co-founded Monumental in 2021 with Sebastiaan Visser. The pair raised $25m (£18.6m) from investors last year. They have long been eyeing the UK – where roughly five times as many bricks are laid per year than in the Netherlands – because of the huge national shortage of bricklayers. A recent report by the Home Builders Federation and the Construction Industry Training Board estimated that 25,000 more brickies are needed to meet the Government's target to build 1.5m homes before the next election.


Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Fraudster behind £1.2m VAT con who blew £19,000 on 40th birthday party and lived it up in luxury hotel stays in Dubai and London is jailed
A fraudster who masterminded a £1.2million VAT con and blew £19,000 on his birthday party has been jailed. Nicholas Adams handed in bogus company tax returns to HMRC and then used the VAT repayments to pay for his 49th birthday party, flights to the UAE and luxury hotel stays in London and Dubai. Over a 19-month period between January 2022 and August 2023, Adams posed as the director of a shell company, Greenpoint Technologies, which he claimed specialised in aircraft and spacecraft maintenance. However, this was only a front for the scam, which made him £373,706. In total, Adams tried to claw back over £1.2million in total before raising suspicions of officials at HMRC, who then withheld further payments. He splashed hundreds of thousands of pounds on what prosecutor Martha Smith-Higgins said was 'a very lavish lifestyle'. There were three stays at five-star hotels - two at The Savoy in London and one at the Atlantis in Dubai. Newport Crown Court heard that Adams lived it up on the proceeds, throwing a £19,000 birthday party at The Botanist in Cardiff, and splashing out on luxury trips to Dubai and London, including stays at The Savoy and Atlantis The Palm. He also spent £43,000 on clothes and jewellery and jetted off to the UAE using the stolen money. But the lavish lifestyle came crashing down when HMRC launched a probe and raided his home, uncovering a trove of forged paperwork. Initially when officials queried the tax returns, Adams lied and created fake documents to support his story but these proved to be wrong after the raid. 'He was the controlling mind behind a substantial and sophisticated VAT fraud,' said Ms Smith-Higgins. 'This was fraud from the outset.' The court was told Adams spiralled into debt after losing his job following Brexit and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in 2021. His defence lawyer, Peter Dennison, said he had since tackled alcohol dependency and was 'ashamed and remorseful'. But Judge Daniel Williams was clear: 'This was a vehicle for fraud. It was sophisticated offending over a prolonged period. The culpability was high.' Adams, of Whitchurch, Shropshire, who had pleaded guilty to knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of VAT at an earlier hearing, was jailed for two years, though he's likely to serve just one behind bars. Following sentencing, an HMRC spokesperson said: 'Tax fraud is not a victimless crime. 'It has real consequences for the public services we all rely on and we are working hard to ensure tax cheats like Nicholas Adams do not gain an unfair advantage over their law-abiding competitors who pay the tax that's due. 'We encourage anyone with information about any type of tax fraud or money laundering to report it online at


BBC News
17 minutes ago
- BBC News
View-ruining mobile mast plan rejected by Bradford Council
A 74ft (22.5m) phone mast would have caused a "substantial degree of harm" to the views in an area of Bradford, city planners have application for the mast and associated equipment on a site off Reva Skye Road in Clayton was refused by Bradford Council after 185 application, by communications company Cornerstone, also included 12 antennas, four dishes, cabinets, and a 7ft (2.1m) fence on the land next to a disused telephone exchange, said the Local Democracy Reporting the plans, officers said: "The monopole would not be sufficiently screened by virtue of scale and siting, would appear distinctly over dominating within its surroundings." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.