Peter Jackson column

Sep 22 2005 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

Money - or at least love of it - lies at the root of all evil.

On the other hand, we are also informed that it makes the world go round.

This doesn't necessarily leave us with the classic, `you pays your money and you takes your choice,' type scenario, for the two propositions aren't mutually exclusive.

But one thing is for certain: money is changing.

About 20 years ago, I researched something which was to transform our shopping futures, called EFTPoS. EFTPoS stood for electronic fund transfer at the point of sale, it was the cashless society - and it was on its way.

I wrote the article and then forgot all about the subject matter until the other day when I was fumbling to get Chip to agree with PIN on my debit card.

And then it suddenly hit me. `My God, it's here - this is EFTPoS.' I foretold its coming and then failed to notice its arrival. I was reminded of this earlier in the week, when a news item set me once again pondering the nature of money.

Spending on credit cards is falling, down by £146m in August, the second monthly fall this year. It also fell in April, which was the first monthly drop since 1994.

This seems to support a recent report claiming a long-term decline in the popularity of credit cards.

I'm not so sure.

I think the August and April falls are more down to the end of the consumer credit boom and high street slump and any claimed long-term decline in credit card popularity is probably more a long-term slow-down in growth of popularity which, in turn, is probably caused by a the growth in use of debit cards.

The interesting question is whether cash is finished. Certainly, as more people grow up familiar with EFTPoS, the use of cash will decline relatively.

But surely it will never disappear altogether but will always be around for buying bus tickets and boxes of matches?

Perhaps, but I shouldn't be surprised to see the development of some sort of card, which can be used to store moderate amounts of cash, which will not require any security verification and which can be used for small transactions. Remember, this is the man who told you about EFTPoS.