Credit cards, Afterpay, or what’s next to evolve — anything but paying with cash

Cash was already teetering on the brink of oblivion. COVID-19 just kicked it over the edge.

The fear of fomites (viral particles passed via surfaces) has much of Australia paying with anything but physical money these days. Tap-and-go is ascendant.

But the trend has been around longer than the virus. The Reserve Bank has been tracking how we pay for things. As well as the obvious — the near-total demise of cheques — it has seen a huge and rapid shift in payments from cash to cards, as the next graph shows.

Intriguingly, there is still huge demand for $100 notes.