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ReadersSpeak
No sunset for cash and checks
P atti Murphy, our Senior Editor and long-
time Insider's Report on Payments columnist,
received the following note about her stance on
the place of cash and checks in the payments
mix:
I just read your article in the Sept. 12, 2016, issue of
The Green Sheet: "No cash? No checks? Nonsense."
Thank you for taking a contrarian position to the
never-ending stream of propaganda from Visa and
NACHA that cash and checks are obsolete.
Visa is in for a big wake-up call when the top 200
retailers find an alternative to interchange, which I
guarantee will happen in the next few years, or when
Apple Pay decides to send the Wells items to Wells
directly, the BofA items to BofA, the Chase items to
Chase, as well as the other top 10 card issuers, by-
passing the Visa rails altogether when someone uses
Apple Pay ? and now the retailers will be paying 50
basis points for settlement, not 250 basis points.
As for NACHA, their primary success story is direct
deposit of payroll and processing government ben-
efit programs. As for Electronic Data Interchange or
B2B payments, they have not much to report even af-
ter 40 years of work.
As for cash, well, I live near Mendocino County, and
I can tell you that in a few months, there will be so
much cash rolling around up there that people liter-
ally won't know what to do with it, and those people
are not taking card payments for their merchandise
either.
Brandes Elitch
CrossCheck Inc.
What about the future of cash and checks?
From your vantage point in the payments realm, what
do you see as the role of cash and checks going forward?
What about new forms of payments that are emerging? Is
there something on the payments horizon we haven't cov-
ered yet or that we've touched upon but that you'd like us
to cover in more depth? Let us know. We always welcome
feedback on our content, as well as constructive ideas on
how we can continue to be a valuable resource to you in
your career. Get in touch at greensheet@greensheet.com.