Band 6+: In the future, people may no longer be able to pay for things in shops using cash. All payments may have to be made by card or using phones. Do you think this will happen one day? Why do you think some people might not be happy to give up using cash? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.

With increasing popularity of electronic payment in our daily lives, we can easily settle our payments by swipping cards or tapping our phones. Some people believe that people will be unable to pay by cash in the future and the society will fully switch to electronic payments. However, it is my firm conviction that this is unlikely to happen due to following reasons.

First of all, some citizens would not give up their rights of using cash which provides a higher protection of their payment records as compared to electronic payment methods. It is common knowledge that all payment records and details including payees, transaction time and purchased goods and services are tracked by electronic payment providers. For instance, credit card companies make use of these transaction information collected to customize their promotion emails sent to you. The increasing use of customers’ payment information for target marketing raises the general public’s concerns about the protection of personal records and increasing risks of privacy invasion. Therefore, there is more campaign to promote using cash in our daily lives to mitigate the risks of privacy invasion because cash payment enables shoppers to remain anonymous. Moreover, rights to alternative ways of payment such as cash is considered as a right by some consumers. Some people choose to boycott those merchandisers that do not offer cash payment option as they believe that they should not be deprived of thehright to choose to pay in cash.

Moreover, preserving cash payment option is essential for people to survive in the face of natural disasters such as flooding that normally paralyses power lines infrastructure. A case in point is the shut down of electricity supply for over a week in Henan Province in China due to serious flooding back in 2022. Because of heavy reliance of electronic payments, these citizens did not have much cash on hand and could not pay for their basic necessity such as good. After this wake-up call, more local people choose to settle a portion of their spending by cash to avoid overreliance of electronic payment.

In conclusion, cash payment is unlikely to die out in the foreseeable future despite the popularity of electronic payment because of increasing concern of privacy issues of electronic payment and the need of cash payment as an ultimate contingency plan for payment in case of serious disasters.