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Speaker 1: Five double a nice with Matthew Pantalis A. National Seniors

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Speaker 1: Australia have been in the batting for people who want

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Speaker 1: to keep cash and make sure cash remains part of

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Speaker 1: our financial system. I don't know that cash will ever disappear, frankly,

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Speaker 1: because I think there's always going to be a need

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Speaker 1: for it somewhere sometime. However, it's certainly not in use

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Speaker 1: the way it was, so it is filtering away, flittering away,

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Speaker 1: just as offered as it seems. Counsels and governments want

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Speaker 1: to slug it out of your pocket for you. Their

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Speaker 1: fingers are in your wallet as well, but they'd be

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Speaker 1: happy to take it digitally too, So keeping cash. There

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Speaker 1: is a keep cash campaign that National Seniors has been

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Speaker 1: running and some draft regulations for cash acceptance have been drafted.

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Speaker 1: These regulations, though have been watered down. Cash acceptance rules

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Speaker 1: won't apply to the number of businesses that National Seniors

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Speaker 1: were hoping. Let's get the meat on the bones for that.

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Speaker 1: Chris Grice, the CEO National Seniors Australia, joins me. Now, Chris,

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Speaker 1: thanks for your time this evening, good evening to.

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Speaker 2: You, Thank you, Matthew. Good to be with you.

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Speaker 1: So what were you hoping to achieve.

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Speaker 2: Well, we were always hoping to achieve basically to keep

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Speaker 2: cash available and accessible for you know, for folk right

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Speaker 2: across the community. So yes, it's for older restrains, but

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Speaker 2: it's not just for older restrains, it's for all austrains.

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Speaker 2: And importantly, what we wanted to make sure that whilst

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Speaker 2: we support and encourage people to do digital transactions as

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Speaker 2: far as banking, we also want to make sure that

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Speaker 2: we maintain cash in the community and in particular for

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Speaker 2: regional and rural parts of the country, cash is still

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Speaker 2: incredibly important because they don't always have at hand the

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Speaker 2: best services in terms of online capability, and so this

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Speaker 2: mandate was really out making sure that at food, clothing,

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Speaker 2: and fuel in particular, and pharmaceuticals importantly, would be basically

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Speaker 2: mandated that retailers would have to accept cash in addition

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Speaker 2: to digital transactions.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and this has been watered down now by the

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Speaker 1: federal government presumably.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So the watering down, if you could call it,

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Speaker 2: that is basically they're prescribing that cash acceptance for fuel

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Speaker 2: and grocery retailers. But what they've taken off that original

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Speaker 2: list was pharmaceuticals, and we know even today a member

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Speaker 2: shared with this her experience where she's actually aging in place.

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Speaker 2: She's living at home. She's on a level two age

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Speaker 2: care package, and what happens is that her care helps

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Speaker 2: her in terms of of shopping so groceries, paying bills

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Speaker 2: and food as well and importantly medication. So the thing

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Speaker 2: is that what she's concerned about that because she pays

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Speaker 2: for these things with cash, and she doesn't want to

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Speaker 2: whilst the care is reliable and trustworthy, you don't want

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Speaker 2: to hand across your credit card or your debit card

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Speaker 2: and your pin number. You want to be able to

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Speaker 2: hand over cash and to not have chemists and pharmacists

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Speaker 2: basically at being mandatory that they should be able to

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Speaker 2: accept cash. That's obviously of concern to us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, because you don't want to be handing over

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Speaker 1: your cards to strangers, as trustworthy as they might be.

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Speaker 1: So okay, no getting around that. Then I suppose, well.

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Speaker 2: We've got to basically tomorrow, so that the that's the

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Speaker 2: where the door closes. So there's submissions being accepted until tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: So obviously we put forward a submission, as has a

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Speaker 2: number of other organizations that are supporting community groups and

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Speaker 2: basically making sure that Treasury understand that you know, what

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Speaker 2: was promised by the Treasurer last year in terms of

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Speaker 2: this camp cash mandate that is proposed to come in

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Speaker 2: in January twenty twenty six. I guess that promise is

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Speaker 2: honored and from the point of view of what was

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Speaker 2: said that the intent of the mandate actually they follow

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Speaker 2: through and it's practical. Matthew. There are even things in

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Speaker 2: there in terms of there would get there's get out

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Speaker 2: clauses around cash being available in natural disasters. That was

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Speaker 2: the whole point of why we wanted to mandate, is

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Speaker 2: that because when there's a natural disaster, typically what happens

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Speaker 2: is services can fall over and therefore people need to

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Speaker 2: pay for things with cash. And to sort of water

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Speaker 2: it down by saying, well, we're going to put exemptions

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Speaker 2: in there that you don't really have to make available

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Speaker 2: or whatever during natural disasters, that's nonsensical to us, and

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Speaker 2: so sort of that's the sort of thing that we

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Speaker 2: need to make sure that we have included in the

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Speaker 2: mandate when it comes in in January twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so some work there to be done.

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Speaker 1: Where are we with armor Guard. Now there was an issue,

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Speaker 1: wasn't there That Armor Guard was potentially in trouble with

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Speaker 1: not enough cash around for them to guard anymore.

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Speaker 2: So Matt Matthew very good in raising that. And you

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Speaker 2: know how I said before about about keeping cash available

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Speaker 2: and accessible. That's the other part of the story, because

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Speaker 2: it's all very well to have a mandate, but if

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Speaker 2: there's no money actually being delivered across the country, it's

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Speaker 2: all worthless. And so what's happened is that it appears

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Speaker 2: that deloittees have been able to broker a deal involving

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Speaker 2: Coles Wilworth's Australia Posts, Bunnings which is West Stumma's, and

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Speaker 2: the form age banks and all the other and the

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Speaker 2: regional banks will come in behind it. And what they've

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Speaker 2: done is they basically broke it a deal which which

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Speaker 2: allows armor Guard to be viable and they'll continue. Surprisingly well,

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Speaker 2: I'm not certainly surprised, but Armagard do ninety five percent

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Speaker 2: of the cash deliveries across the country and still every

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Speaker 2: week there's six billion that's with a b billion dollars

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Speaker 2: in cash delivered every week. So it's still is very

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Speaker 2: much valued. It's still distributed. And this is the reason

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Speaker 2: why that part of the story was important to get

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Speaker 2: that done, because that cash mandate can actually be effective

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Speaker 2: because we know that cash is going to be delivered

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Speaker 2: across the community going forward.

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Speaker 1: All right, meantime, good luck to you trying to find

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Speaker 1: a bank branch that they're disappearing at a rate of notes.

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Speaker 1: Even Australian post outlets they're vanishing. I mean you think

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Speaker 1: about where these places used to be. There's either something

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Speaker 1: else there now in all of them or they're vacant.

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Speaker 1: And that's the case right around the country.

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Speaker 2: There's actually a lot of work's been going on in

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Speaker 2: relation to that with the treasure also, and earlier this year,

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Speaker 2: a mandate was put in or a moratorium i sesppecially

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Speaker 2: could say, was put in place so that no further

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Speaker 2: bank branches in particular regional and rule of Australia can

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Speaker 2: occur up to July twenty twenty seven. So there's basically

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Speaker 2: a freeze in place on that, which is that's excellent

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Speaker 2: news the folk in particular regional rural parts of the

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Speaker 2: country that rely on banks. And also what they did

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Speaker 2: is they Australia Post under their Banker Post service as well.

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Speaker 2: That's been bolstered with some additional investment. Still not enough

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Speaker 2: because really a banker posts can really only process checks

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Speaker 2: and we know that on the way out of pushing

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Speaker 2: at you, and if cash is under pressure, the only

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Speaker 2: other thing that they can do is tell you how

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Speaker 2: much money you've got in your account. So we think

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Speaker 2: that that whole Australia post model needs some work. If

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Speaker 2: that's basically saying that that's going to be the way

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Speaker 2: going forward in those sorts of communities. It's still not

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Speaker 2: quite there, but at least the moratoriums in place, so

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Speaker 2: we're peddling hard to make sure that and that may

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Speaker 2: well be that. There's a proposal from the Regional Banking Alliance,

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Speaker 2: which are basically all the community banks and credit unions

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Speaker 2: across the country where they're doing a lot of the

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Speaker 2: lifting for many of the banks that don't have branches,

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Speaker 2: and so you know they're basically saying, hey, look, we'll

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Speaker 2: do this work for you, but reasonably can you help

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Speaker 2: us pay for tellers and bank branches sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: So there's some work around that we're obviously talking to

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Speaker 2: as many in government as and other interested parties to

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Speaker 2: make sure that there is a solution passed July twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty seven.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because you watch July, how many will close once

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Speaker 1: the oratory amen. So they're just going to snap close

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Speaker 1: a heap of them to catch.

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Speaker 2: Up, exactly. And so that's why you know this, like

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Speaker 2: the cash mandate piece is so important because this is

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Speaker 2: all inter linked and if we have this actually in place,

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Speaker 2: it sort of makes it harder to remove it from

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Speaker 2: the fabric of you know, basically our society in terms

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Speaker 2: of we've got to have it as a backup that

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Speaker 2: it is a sovereign risk. Is that to remove cash

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Speaker 2: completely from circulation. That yes, we must have advancement in

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Speaker 2: advancements in digital payments. I get that, and all the

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Speaker 2: work aound cyber safety that's connected to it, but we've

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Speaker 2: always got to have a backup plan and that's where

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Speaker 2: cash is important.

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Speaker 1: All right, So, Chris, the moratory or this submission period

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Speaker 1: ends tomorrow and you're still love being hard obviously to

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Speaker 1: get at least with pharmaceuticals have a mandatory cash acceptance

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Speaker 1: policy and chemist shops, pharmacies all.

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Speaker 2: That exactly, and lifting the transaction amount because they put

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Speaker 2: a cap at five hundred dollars and we think that,

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Speaker 2: especially if people are sort of buying larger shops, they

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Speaker 2: should be able to pay for cash.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well that should be linked to inflation, shouldn't it, really, CEPI,

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Speaker 1: you know, you start at five hundred and it becomes five, five, five, ten, whatever, year.

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Speaker 2: On year exactly. And that's where we saw that with

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Speaker 2: even member the superannuation piece, where they said, oh no, no,

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Speaker 2: we need indexation and that's what brought them undone. And

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Speaker 2: that's a bit of forward thinking that and we know that,

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Speaker 2: you know, indexation is an important part of these things

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Speaker 2: because regrettably stuff's going up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah all the time. Good on you, Chris, appreciate your time,

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Speaker 1: Good luck with it.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Matthew, Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Chris Gryce, CEO National Seniors Australia,