Reports of the Death of Cash are Greatly Exaggerated

It’s the holiday shopping season, but handling cash is a pain for retailers. Counting, transporting and storing hard currency is a labor intensive process that often outweighs the fact that it is still cheaper than the 2% to 3% fees that credit card companies typically charge, as CFO Journal explained today.

But dealing with cash isn’t just a problem for retailers. Catholic hospital system, Mercy, for example, struggles with the bills and coins patients use to make their insurance co-payments.

About a quarter of all the payments it receives from patients are in the form of cash, says Steve Walden, a manager in treasury operations. The healthcare provider’s own internal transportation unit collects that money daily from some 700 clinics and out-outpatient facilities it operates in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Mr. Walden says there’s a lot of time and work required to move such small amounts of cash to a central hub, where the money is counted and then given to armored car companies, which take it to a vault.

“What I really want to do,” he said, “is do away with cash.”