Consultation on Access to Cash

The BRC Payments Survey 2021 found cash still to be the most cost-effective payment acceptance channel for retailers, but the retail industry is concerned for the long-term viability of cash services as cash transactions volumes decline further.

As the Government’s Access to Cash consultation comes to close, the BRC welcome Government action to ensure our cash system remains sustainable for the long term, and the intention to provide HM Treasury with powers to set geographic access requirements upon designated firms to protect access to cash across the UK. However, to achieve its objectives the government should designate the three UK ATM network operators – LINK, Mastercard, and Visa – with obligations to achieve specified geographic coverage obligations for access to cash across the UK.

Obligations should primarily include setting wholesale access charges for ATM cash withdrawals and setting of wholesale cash deposit fees (i.e. cash deposit interchange fees) giving operators incentives to deploy cash-deposit ATMs (or smart ATMs) as are already widely deployed by banks for their own customers and widely deployed outside the UK.

Wholesale access obligations should also extend to cashback – whereby retailers should expect to receive a fair and reasonable fee for providing cashback services, not be expected to provide such a service for free – and potentially to shared bank branches and/or other shared cash access infrastructure. The provision of such shared “bank hub” facilities should be available to any provider, for example a supermarket or other retailer should be able to provide a shared facility and receive the same wholesale access fees for cash withdrawal or deposit services as would the Post Office or a bank.

Please log-in below to view the BRC response on behalf of the retail industry to HM Treasury. Members are encouraged to send input and feedback on the BRC response to Andrew Cregan by 22nd September.