Smartphones and wallets are becoming one and the same.
Only 10 percent of money in American circulation is cash, and as consumers increasingly rely on electronic services like Apple Pay and debit and credit cards, economists are asking if the days of cash are over.
Gator Growl executive producer Devin McDaniel said the show’s team took the trend into account.
“We noticed that a lot of students don’t carry cash ever,” McDaniel said.
The 21-year-old UF marketing senior said students can now pay with cards, using a Square Credit Card Reader on campus for ticket and T-shirt transactions.
“We have a lot more card sales than cash, for sure,” McDaniel said.
Camila Portillo, a 19-year-old UF advertising sophomore, said she carries cash for emergencies but uses cards about 75 percent of the time.
“I was always raised being told that at least carry $20 with you for the sake of emergencies,” she said. “Otherwise, cash is just like for penny-worth things.”
Wells Fargo is one of six banks that has already partnered with Apple Pay, and Reitz Union branch manager Scott Weaber said electronic payment has its benefits.
“Not only are electronic payments more convenient, they can also allow for increased security,” he said. “It creates a paper trail, whereas cash and coin do not.”
But people assume that new inventions will replace the old, said 29-year-old UF economics doctoral candidate Adam Narkiewicz.
“(Bills and coins) are going to be replaced, and they are already replaced in some places and for some uses,” Narkiewicz said, “but for some uses they are not going to be replaced.”
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 9/30/2014 under the headline "title"]
A Karma Cream employee swipes a credit card on an iPad card reader to complete a transaction Wednesday. Business owners cite portability and saving space as benefits to using the card readers.
