Cash or card in the Eighties?

The wind of change is blowing through the stores of this country, not least in terms of how we may be paying for our purchases in the coming decades. Electronic funds transfer was the subject of a seminar held recently by Retail Conferences (“Retail Cash Handling in the Eighties”), and one of the speakers there gave a run‐down of the evolution of commodity, coin and paper. How long before we swap paper for the plastic card? His criteria for the acceptance of these payment systems was that they were, at one time or another, convenient, secure and universally acceptable. Does the plastic card meet these requirements? Particularly on the last score, where it would have to be acceptable to the banks, the retailers and the consumer? And who pays for the experiments necessary before full implementation of EFTS? And what about the numbers among our population who do not at the moment have bank accounts? Can they be drawn into the system?