PayComplete’s ‘The Cash Chasm’ report reveals cash is here to stay but cash management for many businesses remains stuck in the Stone Age (with 57% of businesses expecting to never be fully cashless).
This is according to The Cash Chasm, a new research report from global cash management solutions provider PayComplete which surveyed cash processing and management decision-makers within the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors from across the world, to assess the status of cash management.
However, regardless of cash’s staying power and continuing popularity with consumers, many businesses are still stuck with out-of-date manual processes for handling, storage, counting and reporting cash that create huge inefficiencies that literally leaves ‘money on the table’. In a surprising revelation, it has been found that 41% of companies still use manual cash-handling processes, leading to many businesses spending over £400,000 a year on excessive security costs which could be slashed with the introduction of new CashTech solutions.
Globally, cash usage remains resilient, with estimates of $40 trillion of physical cash in circulation. Despite many expecting cash use to disappear following the COVID-19 pandemic, quite the reverse has happened. For example, the amount of US dollars in circulation as cash has increased, while in Germany it remains a strong cultural preference. Even in the UK, a region at the forefront of payment innovation, has seen the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announce the need for new legislation to enshrine access to cash in law.
Highlights from The Cash Chasm Report include:
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Over-reliance on manual processes – 41% of organisations admit to having an entirely manual cash handling process. This figure jumps to nearly two-thirds (62%) in France, which lags behind the global average.
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Irritating Inconsistencies – Over a third (34%) of organisations say their biggest challenge is discrepancies when handling and processing cash due to low levels of automation. France (54%) and Spain (43%) are the regions with the biggest discrepancy issues.
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Vanishing Value – A shocking 20% of the value of cash is lost for organisations with 3-5 people handling cash.
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Going Against the Grain – More than one in three (35%) organisations encourage buyers to use electronic payment methods to increase overall efficiencies, despite cash remaining a strong customer preference for payment.
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A Band-Aid on a Broken Leg – 31% of organisations are tightening processes and increasing staff training to offset their lack of automation, further increasing unnecessary operational expenditures.
PayComplete is at the forefront of modernizing cash management for the 21st century. With its cutting-edge systems and proprietary hardware, coupled with a manufacturer-agnostic cloud-based platform, PayComplete is trusted by major businesses across the globe including retailers, merchants, banks, cash-in-transit (CIT) firms, and international mints to automate and provide real-time visibility into the movement of physical cash across their organisations, ensuring more efficient and secure operations.
To download the full The Cash Chasm report please click here: https://paycomplete.com/research-report–volume-1/
