Cash advocates are calling for a halt to bank and automated teller machine closures in Australia following a major telecommunications outage.
Ten million Australians and 40,000 businesses were affected when Australia’s second largest telecommunications network went down on Nov. 8.
The disruption led to coffee shops, bowling alleys, businesses, and government authorities without access to Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale (EFTPOS) services across Australia.
As a response, the telecommunications company said it is providing 200GB of free data to impacted customers to acknowledge their patience and loyalty. However, both a Senate and a separate government inquiry are now looming for Optus.
The outage resulted in widespread disruptions to mobile, data, and internet services, affecting various government departments, including health.
In light of these challenges, Cash Welcome, a grassroots campaign working to protect the right to use and access cash, is calling for an “immediate pause” on all banks and ATMs.
Millions of Australians ‘Left Stranded’
The Cash Welcome campaign noted millions of Australians were left stranded without the ability to make payments due to a nationwide outage.“To make the situation worse, there are fewer places to get cash because banks and bank-owned ATMs are closing,” Cash Welcome said.
“Stop closing cash access points. EFTPOS and internet and power can all fail and can’t be relied upon. Stop food shops going cashless. Let us choose how to pay for our essentials.”
Among the businesses impacted was the Break Away Cafe in Esperance, Western Australia.
The Pink Pig Wine Bar in North Adelaide, South Australia, also advised it was only able to take cash due to the Optus outage.
Also in Adelaide, the Kandy House, said it could not be contacted from the shop or phone and advised payment systems could be down on the morning of the outage.
What Happened at Optus?
A “network event“ was responsible for the major shutdown of services for many hours, Optus explained in a statement on Nov. 9.The telecommunications company said its engineers were investigating and the company would learn from the outage and continue to improve.
The company said they welcome and intend to fully cooperate with government investigations.
“In common with major global telecommunication networks, the Optus network is designed with multiple layers of fallback and redundancy. At the heart of this is a modern intelligent router network developed with the world’s leading vendors,” Optus said.
Cashless Concerns
One Nation Senator for Queensland Malcolm Roberts said like many other Australians, in recent months he has rarely used credit cards and instead used cash.“Please join with us and use cash,” he said in an X (formerly Twitter) post.
Gerard Rennick, Liberal National Party Senator for Queensland, also called for physical branches to stay open and provide the option to use cash.
“How long do you think it will be before all shops and everything in between stop cash transactions?” he said.
