In the age of contactless cards, or tapping your watch and phone in exchange for your morning coffee, the days of cash registers ringing with paper notes and loose change are beginning to look numbered.

Real ale and craft beer bar Sandbar went cashless in February, and tell customers ‘we now only accept card and Bitcoin payments’. Like the popular venue on Grosvenor Street, a growing number of bars and coffee shops in Manchester have already done away with cash payments - and are even adopting cryptocurrencies in their place.

“Basically we think it’s the future,” says Sandbar manager Ash Wright.

“Ten years ago, 95% of our take was cash. In the last two years it dropped down very sharply to 25% before we stopped taking it. I think that’s a trend that’s going to continue.”

Cutting out cash saves money and time and keeps staff safer at work, he says.

“The cost involved in servicing cash was completely unbalanced compared with card payments,” he says.

“It was costing us 40 hours of management time a week auditing it, counting it, banking it, doing all the cash sheets and till sheets.

“On top of that there is a huge amount of risk. There have always been robberies in bars but recently there have been a few with guns. It suddenly became more of a serious risk.

“I don’t want a gun in my face and it’s not something my staff should have to risk as part of their job.”

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Around £1,200 has been saved straight away in annual banking charges by the move, which will also free up staff to focus on other tasks.

“We can allocate time to something better: sorting the website out, doing our own payroll, spending time looking at our electricity supplier,” says Ash.

“Technically we haven’t saved any money on wages but the time we now have will be more profitable because we can invest it into more productive things instead of dealing with paperwork.

“On the whole, cash just seemed to make no sense any more.”

Customers have been broadly welcoming of the move, he says, although a small group of disgruntled former regulars have taken to Facebook and TripAdvisor to vent their frustration at what they have called a ‘discriminatory and short-sighted decision’.

Those critical of refusing cash payments say it excludes people without bank accounts - around 1.5m in the UK according to the Financial Inclusion Commission.

“Yes, there is a moral argument but those people [without bank accounts] weren’t our customers anyway,” says Ash.

“It’s not us discriminating against them. If it’s because they can’t get a bank account, it’s the system discriminating against them.”

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Cash usage is in sharp decline in the UK. In 2006 it was used for 62% of all payments according to UK Finance, falling to 40% in 2016. By 2026 it is predicted to be used for just 21% of transactions.

It may be legal tender but businesses are under no obligation to accept cash as payment - the term is only relevant in the settlement of debts.

“Whether you pay with banknotes, coins, debit cards or anything else as payment is a decision between you and the other person involved in the transaction,” is the Bank of England’s position on the matter.

Nearby on Oxford Road, independent coffee shop Takk and sister bar and nano brewery OL have also been cashless since opening inside pop-up food, drink and retail development Hatch.

Director Philip Hannaway says it was a logical step for them.

“It’s something we’ve thought about for quite a while - 90% of our transactions were through card and the amount of cash people were paying was going down and down and down,” he says.

“It quickens the process of paying and also means we don’t have staff members, or myself, going through town with pockets of money having to go grab change from the bank.

“There’s quite a few places in Manchester that have been burgled for cash held on site. We don’t have the worry about holding cash at our venue.

“Another thing people don’t appreciate for a small business is that the banks charge us for putting cash into our own accounts. It’s hundreds and hundreds of pounds over the year.

“We’re saving on the cost of having someone cash up at the end of the night. Cashing up is now simply pressing a button on a report. As a small business, margins are tight and these things all add up.”

Customer feedback so far has been predominantly positive, Philip says, and he plans to follow suit at the original Takk, on Tariff Street, and the branch opening later this year at University Green, off Oxford Road.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

“We wanted to test it to see if there was any push back by doing it at Hatch, which is quite an experimental development,” he says.

“People have been quite supportive, generally. We’ve had one or two people who aren’t happy and that’s mainly on the basis of keeping people’s data. But I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t pay for something on their card at some point.”

Data and privacy concerns were a factor in introducing Bitcoin payments at Sandbar, Ash says.

While transactions are still traceable, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies purport to offer a greater degree of anonymity than card payments.

Created in 2009, Bitcoin in its most basic sense is a form of digital money ‘mined’ by computer. Unlike traditional fiat currencies such as the pound, it has no central bank and is not regulated by any organisation or state, and its value has fluctuated wildly over the years. One Bitcoin was worth around £6,062.94 at the time of writing - down from over £14,000 at its peak in December 2017.

“We’ve had a few people pay with it,” says Ash.

“For most people it’s a novelty, because the money they’ve got in Bitcoin is investment money, not money to buy a beer with.

“We’ve had some people come in and say ‘I didn’t even know that was real’. A lot of people aren’t aware of it at all.

“It’s been quite contained within its own world so far and I suppose bringing it into a bar setting we do hope to further its expansion and awareness and take part in what a lot of people think is quite an exciting emergence of cryptocurrency into the mainstream economy.”

UK regulators view Bitcoin as a commodity rather than a currency, but it is gaining credibility as a legitimate method of payment for a growing number of retailers.

It can be bought from online exchanges or in person from Bitcoin ATMs, including The Corner Store a few doors down from Sandbar.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

The shop was among the city’s earliest adopters of Bitcoin and has a machine where you can purchase the currency and load it into a digital wallet on your phone. In the spirit of this feature I try to pay with my card...but it’s cash only.

Irony aside, paying for a pint with Bitcoin back at Sandbar is as simple as using Apple Pay.

“A customer would come in as normal, they’d purchase a drink as normal. When they come to pay, instead of setting up a transaction on the card machine, we present our QR code," Ash explains.

"They’d get their phone out, they’d pull open their Bitcoin or cryptocurrency wallet, and they would scan our QR code.

“It’s very fast and no different to customers who are coming in with their bank cards loaded on their phones.”

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

The system is still far from seamless, however. Transactions can be slow to be confirmed and fees vary wildly depending on the wallet provider.

The crypto community is currently working on ways to resolve these issues, which pose a significant barrier for businesses and customers.

“It’s not something we see as a profitable model at the minute,” Ash admits. “It’s about raising awareness and being part of its growth.”

Nevertheless, experts predict more businesses in Manchester will soon be following suit.

“At first, accepting Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency for a pint of lager or a plate of pasta might seem like a bit of a gimmick,” says Gasper Stih, brand manager at crypto-trading platform Blocktrade.com.

“But many of the world’s most successful companies are spotting the potential in this technology — including the likes of Starbucks, Microsoft, Subway and Amazon.

“These are some of the biggest brains in business, and they know people are open-minded and willing to accept a different method of paying for goods.”

Their seal of approval goes a long way to increasing the legitimacy of cryptocurrency, he adds.

“It ends the notion digital money is some kind of flash in the pan, so it is likely other smaller retailers in Manchester will follow suit, seeing that as a green light to join in,” he says.

“Compare it to the early days of the internet. Even that had its naysayers.”

Nevertheless there are risks, he cautions.

“The value of cryptocurrency is notoriously volatile, and there is the drawback that accepting, say £30 worth of Bitcoin could only be worth £20 tomorrow,” says Gasper.

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“One day, we will see the value of cryptocurrency become much more steady but until then the payment risk can be mitigated with processors like BitPay, which will immediately convert a transaction into fiat money like pounds or dollars at the current exchange rate.

“Payments are also cheap, fast, convenient and secure. For smaller businesses, it wipes out fraud. Its nature makes all transactions irreversible and once you’re paid, you’re paid. That is thanks to the blockchain, the technology which gives cryptocurrency its value.

“In terms of businesses, it puts them in control of their money without limitations imposed by any central authorities like the Government or banks.

“Cryptocurrency can be used anywhere around the world and won’t incur any international transaction fees, which can be especially useful if a store serves a lot of tourists or foreign customers.”

Back at Takk, Philip is also considering the potential of cryptocurrency.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

“Technology is becoming such that I think it will become more and more common,” he says.

“I think we will [accept Bitcoin in future], it’s something we’ve looked at. A lot of our customers work within the tech industry and that’s something they are keen to see us do.

“It’s definitely something that we’re open to. We just want to make transactions as easy as possible for the customer and introduce systems that make the best use of our team, so we can give over more time to preparing great coffee and treating our customers to a great experience.

“If we can take the faff away from the exchange we can focus on providing a great service. If that’s cryptocurrency in the future, then that’s what we’ll do.”