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3 Reasons Going Cashless Is Destructive

In 2019, San Francisco issued a “cashless” ban that required small businesses to accept cash payments.  Despite the growing popularity of online shopping and contactless payments, other cities have followed suit.

Why? Not all residents have access to a bank account or credit card. Going “cashless” is disproportionately harmful to underbanked communities, leaving basic goods and services unattainable to millions of people.

In this article, we give three reasons why:

  • It creates barriers for the roughly 30% of U.S. Family households who are un/underbanked.

  • It limits payment resilience

  • Disproportionality impacts people of color

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How Cash Hinders School Finances

Families, even if adequately banked themselves, could experience challenges if their school is not able to collect fees from a third of their community: The entire district is impacted. More teachers are laid off, facilities suffer, and fewer students can participate in extracurriculars. In Los Angeles, twice as many teachers were laid off in underbanked districts during the last recession.

In this article, we experience a walkthrough of the real-life impacts of macroeconomic trends on schools and the families involved.

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What Does Inclusive Payments Mean?

The World Bank estimates that 1.7 billion adults worldwide still lack access to a basic bank account. Recently, companies started to recognize this community of unbanked individuals and began creating revolutionary financial technology for financial inclusion.

In this article, we define some keywords in financial inclusion and how to meet that demographic where they are.

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Make Your Payments Inclusive

Accept Cash Along with Card & ACH — All Online

Digital payment solutions have made paying with cash a real problem. We work with what we call “must-pay services” to remove barriers between families and organizations by providing a payment solution built to accept cards, ACH, and cash.

Get Inclusive Payments
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The Need for
Inclusive Technology

1/3 of American families lack access to traditional credit/debit cards or checking accounts.

See How Inclusive Payments Work

Pay Theory’s Inclusive Payments tool is a simple way to allow your customers the ability to pay with cash without your organization taking on the liability of cash handling. Pay Theory has a network of over 65,000 retail locations where your customers can make their payments in person.

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Step 1

Choosing Cash at Checkout

When a payor checks out  online, they have the option to select cash. When they do, a unique barcode is generated for that payment that can be taken to any one of over 65,000 locations where they can pay in person.

Step 2

Payor Finds Nearby Location

The payor can bring their generated barcode to 1 of the 65,000+ retail locations to make the payment. Pay Theory provides a map detailing where participating locations are and which ones are closest to them at any given time.

Step 3

Payor Pays Cashier

Once they are at a retail location, the payor brings their barcode to a cashier. Just like any other product in the store, the cashier scans the uniquely generated barcode. The payor pays the total to the cashier.

Step 4

Payment is Received

Once the payor has paid the cashier, the transaction has taken place and the payment shows up in the portal as paid. Funds from the payment are received in just a couple days. This inclusive way of paying online is unique to Pay Theory. Payors who want or need to pay with cash can do so, and you and your merchants don’t have to incur risk associated with handling cash payments.

Excel.
Increase.
Simplify.

Payments Everyone Can Access

When businesses start accepting payments, it usually assumes all payers will pay with a method tied to a bank account. So where does that leave families paying with cash? Barriers are created and bills go unpaid. Our cash feature gives all families equal opportunity to pay their bills.

Increase Your Total Collections

1/3 of school payments can go unpaid. Increase collections while providing ease of access to vital services.

No Need For Cash Handling

You can accept cash without the risk or hassle of cash handling. Payers pay with cash at one of our 65,000+ retail partner locations, keeping cash off campus.

“It is important to work with technology partners that are extremely knowledgeable in their market space, have deep technical expertise, are flexible and humble enough to shift direction, build new features, and communicate effectively with their counterparts — In Pay Theory, we have been fortunate to check all of those boxes.”

Aidan Zebertavage • Senior Product Manager

What You Should Know

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Inclusive

You become even more inclusive by accepting payment methods everyone can access.

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Easy Implementation
When you use Pay Theory, you automatically get access to our cash acceptance feature. No setup required.

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No Cost to You
Our clients never pay for our cash acceptance feature. The only cost is a convenience fee to the payer.

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Flat-Rate Fee
To cover the cost of this feature, a flat-rate convenience fee of $2.50 is added automatically to the barcode.

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Unique Barcode Generation

Our system generates a unique barcode containing all the information associated with the payment.

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Top Tier Retail Partners

We work with many national brands such as Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Family Dollar, 7-Eleven, and many more.

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65K+ Retail Locations

When payers choose cash, they get a link to a map displaying all the locations near them where they can pay.

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See Payments Immediately

When the barcode is scanned & the transaction is completed, the payments show up in the portal automatically.

Make Your Payments Inclusive

Accept Cash Along with Card & ACH — All Online

Digital payment solutions have made paying with cash a real problem. We work with what we call “must-pay services” to remove barriers between families and organizations by providing a payment solution built to accept cards, ACH, and cash.

Get Inclusive Payments

FAQ

Contact Pay Theory
Does Pay Theory accept more than cash payments?

Yes. Along with cash, we accept Visa, Mastercard, Amex (all major cards), and ACH.

How does this technology make payments more inclusive?

1/3 of families are either unbanked or underbanked, making online payments nearly impossible to make. When a family needs to pay with cash, many organizations are not equipped to handle and encourage a different form of payment. By accepting cash payments digitally, you offer these families the ability to pay with cash while also saving merchants from having to handle cash.

How do cash payments work?

When payers choose cash our system generates a unique barcode containing all the information associated with the payment. They can take that barcode to one of the 65,000+ retail locations. The cashier will scan the barcode, the payor pays the cashier, and the payment is shown as received in the backend.

In what locations can payors use inclusive functionality?

We work with many national brands such as Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Family Dollar, 7-Eleven, and many more. Visit our map to find locations near you.

Inclusive Payments for A Diverse World
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