| This is why your grocery store partners with an ATM network to let you take out extra cash at the POS. As long as you're paying the fee, they'll do whatever they can to trade you cash for a digital deposit into their bank account. This is not universal. Where I currently live, and where I lived five years ago, supermarkets charge a fee (50¢ here, 25¢ where I used to live) to take out cash at the POS, because the card transaction cost more than handling cash. There was a lot of "Are you sure?" prompts on the screen because the supermarkets (both big chains) didn't want the burden of the plastic transaction. I've seen it stated a lot in technology forums that "cash is more expensive for merchants than cards," but I've never seen that spelled out from any source other than the card companies. Every low-margin business I patronize, from the garden centers, to the convenience stores, to the antique stores all either offer a discount for cash, or charge a fee to use plastic. Just last week, a woman who's run an antiques store for 35 years told me that card fees were going to put her out of business, and she practically begged me to go down the street to my bank to get cash for my purchase. |