Aussies have lashed out at the country’s rapid shift to a cashless society as the disastrous Optus outage forced many to return to cash payments.
The telco sent Aussies packing after the nationwide technical outage on Wednesday, which was first reported around 4am.
At least 10 million users were unable to call or send text messages, while the internet connection was unavailable for more than nine hours.
The blunder left thousands of businesses across the country unable to operate their EFTPOS machines due to the power outage.
The meltdown forced customers to pay for services with cash, prompting consumers to now resist measures to reduce the number of ATMs and bank branches that prevent them from withdrawing cash.
One TikTok user by the name of @giggles_in_the_dark summed up the sentiment of many Australians opposed to the accelerated transition to a cashless society.
The woman filmed an angry tirade outside an IGA store which had put up a sign reading ‘Cash only…EFTPOS is offline’, with the supermarket apologizing for the inconvenience following Wednesday’s outage.
“The fact that this is still happening and yet the Australian government is removing banks and ATMs to make it even harder to get cash is such a terrible thing to do,” the woman said.
“Make society cashless, no, hell, we need cash.”
Aussie has lashed out at Australia’s move to become a cashless society, saying Wednesday’s Optus outage was proof the country should not embrace the rapid move towards getting rid of cash.
The Optus outage on Wednesday forced thousands of businesses to return to cash payments after internet and mobile services were halted
The user captioned the video with a short warning that read: ‘Give us back our ATMs and banks, let us be a money company that controls us if you can’t control these problems.’
Thousands of viewers responded to the post as many agreed that cash was necessary, even though most financial transactions now take place electronically.
‘Yesterday (Wednesday) proved to everyone that the world runs out of cash when computer systems malfunction. Hackers can solve the problem,” one user wrote.
“I believe cash is king… We all need to start using it again,” said another.
Others said banks were responsible for reducing the number of ATMs.
‘It is not the government that removes banks and ATMs. The banks make those decisions. But a cashless society? Yes, great idea!’ wrote one user.
Some said going cashless was just a matter of time and people would have to get used to it.
“(We’re) going cashless, moving on or being left behind,” one person wrote.
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority data from October showed 424 bank branches closed in the year to June.
The number of ATMs has also steadily declined in regional parts of Australia, with 124 bank branches closing in six years.
Since 2017, 1,600 bank branches have closed across Australia.
Several business owners told Ny Breaking Australia that Wednesday’s outage was a dire warning of the dangers of a cashless society.
Peggy Zaromias, the owner of Nick’s Handbags in Bankstown in Sydney’s west, said giving up cash altogether would undermine the operations of many small family businesses.
‘I’m old-fashioned. I still prefer cash, not just for business, but for everything,” Ms. Zaromias said.
‘If they turn around and say, “We’re going cashless” – well, that’s ridiculous.
“If something like (the Optus crash) happens, what then?”
Thousands of bank branches across the country have closed as Australia rapidly moves towards a cashless society
Peggy Zaromias, the owner of Nick’s Handbags in Bankstown in Sydney’s west, told Ny Breaking Australia the move to a cashless society would impact small and family businesses.
Independent payments market expert Lance Blockley estimated that traditional cash would make up less than 4 percent of total retail purchases nationwide by 2025.
The Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and NAB have all opened cashless branches where customers are directed to ATMs for ‘everyday banking’.
Commenwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn told a Senate inquiry this year that it cost CBA $400 million to make cash available to its customers.
Optus has yet to provide a detailed explanation of the cause of Wednesday’s outage, but has so far attributed the widespread power outage to a technical problem.
The company announced that users on post-paid mobile plans would receive 200 gigabytes of data as a result of the outage as a ‘reward’ for their loyalty.
Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin previously refused to compensate customers for the outage period after saying that “reimbursing people for one day is probably less than $2.”