That is not true... Up until just a couple years ago I successfully operated a “Cash/in house credit only” business that did extremely well. Because of my rates my customers did not mind paying the credit I extended, or making the effort to hand me cash.
So that is a myth invented by banks who want to reap the middleman tariffs and tolls.
It is absolutely true. Great you operated A business. Meanwhile cash continues to become a smaller and smaller portion of our economy. The simple reality is once that once the check guarantee card began to morph into the ATM card, which then morphed into the debit cash was already dead. It just didn’t know it yet.
There’s no myth about it. I’ve been paid by direct deposit since I got out of my student aid job. My mortgage comes out automatically. I’ve got a dozen other small bills on autopayment, probably more actually. My debit card does 99% of my purchasing.
Here:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/10/05/more-americans-are-joining-the-cashless-economy/
Cash has lost about 30% of its usage in the last 7 years. The people most likely to use cash have none. The people who actually have money don’t touch it. Meaning that while we still have a lot of cash transactions in quantity, they’re small transactions, and plenty of businesses have decided they aren’t worth the over head and have dropped it.
Cash is dead.
Has been for a long time. But it’s been coasting on momentum.
Old poor people don’t accept that yet (they are the momentum).
But once they’re gone so will the last remnants of cash.