- Its network has handled a £3.45billion in notes and coins in August
- The Post Office said customers were turning to cash to manage their budgets
- The use of card and online payments was accelerated by the Covid pandemic
The cost of living crisis has sparked a return to the use of cash, figures from the Post Office revealed yesterday.
Its network handled a record £3.45billion in notes and coins in August, with personal deposits exceeding £1.4billion for the first time. Business cash deposits were also up, hitting £1.2billion – an increase of 5.5 per cent on July.
The Post Office said customers were increasingly turning to cash to help manage their budgets on a weekly, or even daily, basis. Spokesman Martin Kearsley said: ‘We expect cash transactions to continue to exceed expectations for the rest of the year.’
The use of card and online payments was accelerated by the Covid pandemic and the number of transactions involving notes and coins fell by 35 per cent in 2020.