Volumatic welcomes new rules safeguarding access to cash - and offers further help for businesses
21 November 2024
A new set of rules brought in recently to safeguard access to cash for businesses and consumers by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are apparently working well and have already brought positive results for local communities and businesses alike.
Two months after being introduced, the new rules have already sparked the creation of 15 new banking hubs across the UK, including one in Scotland, with many more to follow.
These hubs provide shared spaces for customers to access basic services, such as depositing and withdrawing cash, and are being embraced by businesses keen to support the use of cash, who have been struggling in recent years thanks to the flurry of bank closures across the UK.
How do the new rules work?
The FCA’s 2022 Financial Lives Survey found that, while digital payments are popular, 3.1 million adults still use cash for everyday payments. The new rules are intended to ensure that individuals and businesses who rely on cash can continue to access it.
Sheldon Mills, Executive Director for Consumers and Competition at the FCA, said: “The way we spend money is changing. We don’t want to stand in the way of change, but we do want to ensure reasonable access for those who continue to rely on cash. Our new rules are already having an impact, protecting vital services for communities across the country.”
This means that as of September 2024, banks and building societies must review whether any changes they make to local services, such as closing branches or cash machines, leave local communities lacking ways to take out or pay in cash.
In addition to this, businesses, residents and charities who feel there is a gap in their cash access can request a formal assessment from the UK’s leading cash access and ATM network provider, LINK. which will examine if there are any gaps in the ability to deposit and withdraw cash. If there are, banks and building societies will then need to deliver additional cash services to meet the local area's needs – whether it be cash machines, banking hubs, deposit ATMs or Post Office facilities.
This allows anyone to voice their concerns – and be taken seriously – if access to cash and banking facilities is becoming a problem.
Taking things one step further with Volumatic
As industry leaders, Volumatic has long supported the use of cash and the importance of maintaining access to cash for both consumers and businesses and recognises how important the new FCA rules are to businesses and consumers across the UK.
But with time being of the essence for most businesses in the current climate, making a journey to your nearest bank, banking hub or Post Office isn’t always a productive use of time, plus there is an obvious security risk to both your money and the person taking it to consider.
With this in mind, Volumatic welcomes the increase in banking hubs and other facilities but recommends businesses go one step further to make things even easier something we can help with.
Volumatic offers a range of cash handling solutions, with their most advanced device being the CounterCache intelligent (CCi). This all-in-one solution validates, counts and stores your cash securely at POS, with UK banks currently processing over 2.5 million CCi pouches each year. When coupled with our upgraded CashView Enterprise cash management software and its suite of intelligent apps, the Volumatic CCi can offer a full end-to-end cash management solution – and now goes one step further.
It does this by providing web service integration with the CASH360 cash management solution, provided by the foremost UK provider of cash security, G4S Cash Solutions (UK).
Volumatic’s partnership with G4S, announced back in April 2024, ultimately combines these two fantastic solutions, meaning every business dealing in cash anywhere in the UK can have access to this fully managed solution. This will be especially relevant to those who currently have to walk or travel a distance to a bank or PO to deposit their cash.
Volumatic’s Sales & Marketing Director Mike Severs, says: “We’ve known for some time that more and more people are using cash again on a daily basis and so it’s great that access to cash is being protected by the FCA, something that we and others in the industry have been campaigning for, for a long time. Both businesses and consumers need to have easy and local access to cash, and these new rules ensure cash usage continues to rise and will encourage more businesses to realise that cash is still an important and valid payment method.”
“Although having more banking facilities is fantastic news, Volumatic can help businesses even more by bringing the bank to them through an investment in technology like the CCi that can offer integration with the G4S CASH360 solution. Together, we make daily cash processing faster, safer, and more secure and the combination of solutions will save businesses time and money for years to come, making it a truly worthwhile investment.“
Ultimately, only time will tell how successful the FCA’s new rules will prove, and they will be monitoring their data closely to see how everything is working in practice. In the short amount of time the new legislation has been in place the signs are already looking good, and this, coupled with new technology offered by the likes of Volumatic, can only be a good thing for businesses and consumers alike in the ongoing fight for access to cash and more efficient cash processing.