Cash is dying, but we'll miss it when it's gone

Most people now pay with debit or credit cards rather than cash. It might seem to you that this doesn’t matter much. But it does.

Still use cash? You're a dinosaur. Last year in the UK, a mere £1 in every £5 was spent in cash. Most people now use debit or credit cards (or some other kind of digital money) for everything. It might seem to you that this doesn't matter much or perhaps that it is a good thing.

Cash is grubby; it's a bore to get hold of (the number of ATMs in the UK is falling) and impossible to replace when lost. Its absence also makes life easier for honest traders. With no cash to deal with, VAT returns practically calculate themselves, tills don't need reconciling and those trying trips to the bank to deposit takings disappear forever (as do the robberies that come with having cash).

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.