Cash is important today as ever

The ATM Industry Association (ATMIA), the only global non-profit association for the ATM industry, has globally released its Cash Connects Us video to be used in online social media.

“Cash is one of the most successful human technologies of all time,” commented Mike Lee, CEO of ATMIA. “And today it represents 84% of all global transactions. We wanted to convey cash’s important role.”

The idea for the video was conceived by ATMIA’s ATM Cash Council whose mission is to portray the truth about cash by tracking global cash demand, circulation and usage today, whilst protecting the freedom of the world’s citizens to choose to use cash if they so wish.

“Unfortunately, some of the global card schemes, in particular, Visa, have aggressively declared war on cash in order to increase the sale of their plastic cards,” Lee explained, “whereas we believe in the peaceful co-existence of cash, cards and other payments such as online and mobile transactions. We are calling for an end to this war in payments. Let’s get human about this issue.”

The 2nd edition of Money: A History(2007), published by the British Museum Press, states that despite the rise of plastic cards and electronic money transfers, cash remains the most important kind of money in the world.

The key theme of the cash video, which will be posted on YouTube and other social media, is that cash connects us because it makes payments free and easy between people and merchants from all walks of life across the world.