This essentially means when you buy something from a shop – say a takeaway coffee from a cafe – you are technically entering into a contract to purchase the coffee when you order.Cafes are well within their rights to ask for card payments only – but they must make that abruptly clear before you order ."So, as long as the merchant has a sign at the counter that lays out these terms, which is visible to customers before the point of purchase, it is within its rights not to accept cash.
The legal terms of this are laid out in the Currency Act 1965, which if you are feeling particularly litigious,This newsagency is banning cash in the hopes it will help stop the spread of the virus to employees.the Australian Banking Association to fast-track up to half a million debit cards for elderly AustraliansAccording to the RBA, there is one facet of society where a payment of cash cannot be turned down: repaying a debt.
"If a provider of goods or services specifies other means of payment prior to the contract, then there is usually no obligation for legal tender to be accepted as payment," explains the central bank. "However, refusal to accept legal tender in payment of an existing debt, where no other means of payment/settlement has been specified in advance, conceivably could have consequences in legal proceedings; for example, the creditor may be unable to enforce payment in any other form."