Most places still accept cash, but approximately no-one uses it. Store staff almost always assume tap-to-pay, and have to cancel the transaction if you pull out cash.
Bill payment is done with a pre-authorised debit transaction, credit cards, or using an Australia-only (I think?) system called BPay. Most utilities, etc, have a BPay number, and most (all?) bank apps and websites support BPay payments.
Person-to-person payments used to require entering bank (called BSB: bank, state, branch) and account codes, and took 2 days to transfer. In the last few years there's a new system (called PayID) that uses email or phone number identifiers, and offers instant settlement.
So ... basically anything legal is now done electronically.
During COVID, many stores stopped accepting cash, and some of those never started again. At this point, it's only a small proportion, but I imagine it will grow over the next few years.
I worked on a BBQ stall at my child's school fete recently. To take electronic payments, you had to go to a different designated stall and pay for tokens, and bring them back to the BBQ stall to exchange for food. I noticed that many people carried an "emergency" $20 or $50 tucked in their phone case, and broke it out rather than do the extra steps to get tokens.
I personally withdraw a few hundred dollars every few months: one of my favourite restaurants is cash-only (very rare!) and the farmers market vendors seem to prefer cash too. But that's about the only times I use it now.
Also, in Australia, the banks have started to withdraw their ATM networks.
Previously, all banks had a network of "first party" ATMs, and fee-free deals with other banks meant you could mostly withdraw from any bank-owned ATM free. There was a small group of non-banks ATMs that charge a $3 fee for a maximum $200 withdrawal.
Now the major banks have outsourced their ATM network to an armoured car company, removed most of their first-party ATMs, and the only bank-owned ATMs are now in branches. And there's not a lot of branches still around these days.
So actually getting cash is no longer as easy as it was.
I visited Australia recently and was surprised to see that many stores (even at the airport) add a surcharge if you pay with a card. I haven't seen that in any other country.
The law preventing that was repealed a couple of years ago. Many businesses have since imposed a fee, reflecting their costs from the payment networks/banks.
The original argument, that it saved them the costs of handling cash, seems to have faded.
Most places still accept cash, but approximately no-one uses it. Store staff almost always assume tap-to-pay, and have to cancel the transaction if you pull out cash.
Bill payment is done with a pre-authorised debit transaction, credit cards, or using an Australia-only (I think?) system called BPay. Most utilities, etc, have a BPay number, and most (all?) bank apps and websites support BPay payments.
Person-to-person payments used to require entering bank (called BSB: bank, state, branch) and account codes, and took 2 days to transfer. In the last few years there's a new system (called PayID) that uses email or phone number identifiers, and offers instant settlement.
So ... basically anything legal is now done electronically.
During COVID, many stores stopped accepting cash, and some of those never started again. At this point, it's only a small proportion, but I imagine it will grow over the next few years.
I worked on a BBQ stall at my child's school fete recently. To take electronic payments, you had to go to a different designated stall and pay for tokens, and bring them back to the BBQ stall to exchange for food. I noticed that many people carried an "emergency" $20 or $50 tucked in their phone case, and broke it out rather than do the extra steps to get tokens.
I personally withdraw a few hundred dollars every few months: one of my favourite restaurants is cash-only (very rare!) and the farmers market vendors seem to prefer cash too. But that's about the only times I use it now.