News

Tesco's cashless store 'risks excluding unbanked customers'

A new cashless supermarket in Central London is part of a trend putting disadvantaged people at risk of financial exclusion

Coins

Last week Tesco embraced an increasingly cashless society by opening a store on High Holborn, Central London, that doesn’t accept notes or coins.

The shop has only two manned tills, swapping the rest for self-service lanes, and only accepts electronic payment.

Up to 80 per cent of payments made in the UK are made electronically. But experts are warning that the new store – Tesco’s second of its kind – makes shopping inaccessible for elderly and vulnerable customers and risks creating financial chaos for the excluded if other retailers follow suit.

Beth Thomas, head of partnerships and programmes at The Big Issue, has played a pivotal role in ensuring that vendors remain financially included by helping them to start offering contactless payments.

Reacting to the news, she said: “This isn’t something to celebrate. Shops that choose to only accept cashless are essentially choosing to exclude certain customers. Those with disabilities, elderly people, people with poor mental health and ‘unbanked’ people are all at risk of being further excluded in a cashless society.”

The Big Issue has long campaigned against financial exclusion and worked hard to make sure our vendors don’t lose out on making a living as fewer and fewer people carry cash.

In 2018 we kicked off a trial with Swedish tech firm iZettle to get card readers to those selling The Big Issue in towns and cities in Britain.

So far, as of December 2019, 133 vendors across the UK have gone contactless. The impact on sales for vendors in the trial was immediate and significant. Several reported rises, some only slightly (eight per cent) while one saw their sales skyrocket by 290 per cent.

On average, a quarter of the vendors’ overall sales were made via cash payments, with two vendors making around 80 per cent of their sales without cash.

Vendor Hugh Palmer said: “People think, ‘Ooh he’s got contactless, he must be OK.’ You fit back into society; before when it was cash only you would get days when people just didn’t buy the magazine from you.”

Last year Natalie Ceeney, independent chair of the Access to Cash Review, warned that an increasing number of moves to cashless risked millions of people for whom cash is not a choice but a necessity.

She added: “If we don’t plan carefully for a world of lower cash, in other words, if we sleepwalk into a cashless society, millions of people will be left behind.”

The Review argued that deprived communities in particular tend to rely on using cash – while MoneySavingExpert founder Martin Lewis said that it is “more affluent and technologically savvy” people who can afford to live cashless lives.

A Tesco spokesperson said: “We’re pleased to be opening this cashless store in High Holborn to help customers checkout and pay quickly.”

“This is our second entirely cash-free store, our first opened in May 2018 at our Head Office in Welwyn Garden City. We are looking forward to hearing customer feedback.”

Support the Big Issue

For over 30 years, the Big Issue has been committed to ending poverty in the UK. In 2024, our work is needed more than ever. Find out how you can support the Big Issue today.
Vendor martin Hawes

Recommended for you

View all
Care worker faced homelessness as low pay left her with 'nothing' to fall back on
social care/ abbie bowler
Social care

Care worker faced homelessness as low pay left her with 'nothing' to fall back on

Housing crisis: Shared ownership an 'unbearable reality' which has 'failed to deliver', MPs warn
Housing

Housing crisis: Shared ownership an 'unbearable reality' which has 'failed to deliver', MPs warn

Most tenants have never heard of the beleaguered Renters Reform Bill
Renters and the Renters Reform Bill
Renting

Most tenants have never heard of the beleaguered Renters Reform Bill

'Job apocalypse': Up to 8 million Brits risk losing their jobs to AI, government warned
Employment

'Job apocalypse': Up to 8 million Brits risk losing their jobs to AI, government warned

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Here's when UK households to start receiving last cost of living payments
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Here's when UK households to start receiving last cost of living payments

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know