James Shepherd-Barron
Latest posts by James Shepherd-Barron (see all)
- HOT FROGS and the monetization of money - 3rd March 2021
- CoVid Lessons Un-Learned - 29th January 2021
- HOLE IN THE WALL (Book Extract) - 18th January 2021
Is it true that banknotes do not pose a risk of infection for the public?
According to Cash Essentials, Bundesbank executive board member Johannes Beermann certainly thinks so and has indicated that the risk of picking up coronavirus from handling cash is extremely minimal. “Banknotes and coins do not pose a particular risk of infection for the public,” he said.
And he is right.
Banknotes do not seem to play a major part in what epidemiologists call ‘the chain of transmission’. If they did, incidence of C-19 infection would be much higher. And the way they are made, with their polymer substrates, anti-microbial inks and surfactant varnishes, means that they don’t lend themselves to the transmission of pathogens.
But notice his use of the word ‘particular’.
There is a lot of evidence out there – much of it contradictory – to show that bacteria and viruses can survive on metal, paper, plastic and glass surfaces for hours, if not days at a time. But it’s true that the probability of becoming ill from handling cash is no larger – and probably smaller – than from any other objects used in everyday life, such as debit cards, mobile phones and ATM PIN-pads. This is the view of Germany’s Koch Institute which recently confirmed that “Virus transmission through banknotes has no particular significance.”
But the cash industry and ATM deployers could do more to educate the public about this. For example, by providing the evidence of the extent to which ‘paper’ and polymer notes and ATM touchscreens or PIN-pads do or do not act as vectors (fomites) of transmission; and how the way banknotes are manufactured provides an additional level of protection to that of, say, a doorknob.
After all, the ATM has a screen. This provides a unique touchpoint for proactive communications with the public for important public-health messaging like these. It has done it before in places like Kathmandu after the earthquake of 2015. The industry will only have itself to blame if cash use declines still further from the 50% it already has in the UK and fails to rebound in the recovery phase.
ATM deployers could do more, too, to reassure the public that disinfection of both the external and internal workings of the ATM is taking place regularly. Perhaps it’s time to fit permanent hand-sanitizer dispensers to all ATM facias? Now THAT would add value to the ATM’s perceived usefulness to society … another aspect that has been badly communicated by the industry, fixated as it is on interchange fees and payment choice.
Didn’t anyone tell them that consumers don’t trust banks anymore and resent being charged fees to access what they see as their own money? Yes, we want free-to-use ATMs in our streets and shops and complain loudly when, almost overnight, they disappear. But it’s about more than charges: It’s about social utility.
As Monty Python would have put it, “What’s the ATM ever done for us?” Time for a demonstration perhaps?