The Growing Economic Challenge of Cash Access in Africa

While digital payments offer consumers convenience, cash continues to fulfil an important role in everyday commerce while also providing payment system resilience and financial inclusion. However, maintaining the infrastructure that supports cash access is not without considerable cost. This can be particularly difficult to recover in locations with lower transaction volumes, such as rural, remote and underserved communities. In turn, this may make operating an ATM less commercially attractive for exactly those communities where access to cash and basic financial services can be most important.

This raises a wider question for policymakers and the industry: should the sustainability of cash access be determined solely by transaction volumes, or should its broader economic and social value also be recognised? The answer has implications for how ATM networks are funded, operated and supported in the future.