Government bodies will have to continue to accept both cash and electronic payments for goods, services or fines, under the new National Payments Plan unveiled by Minister for Finance Jack Chambers.
The report said that ministers will have to ensure that their departments and bodies under their aegis will be in a position by the end of next June to accept both at least one form of electronic payment and cash payments – or facilitate cash payments by a third party.
“Therefore, future contracts will not be able to include a ‘no cash’ clause,” it said.
However, it also highlighted that it is not possible for Ireland – or any individual member of the European Union (EU) – to introduce laws to provide for mandatory cash acceptance in a sector or subsector. The European Commission only has the ability to propose such legislation, it noted.
The strategy on general cash acceptance will be to inform all sectors of the economy, and specifically retailers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), of future EU rules on cash acceptance, should EU legislation on legal tender be agreed, it said.
“The Irish payments landscape is very different today than 10 years when the previous iteration of this strategy was put in place,” said Mr Chambers.
“Consumers are increasingly turning to digital means of payment, be they card payments, or tapping to pay at retail outlets with smartphones or watches. There has also been much discussion around the decline in the use of cash for day-to-day payments and the need to protect this form of payment which remains the preferred form of payment for so many in our society, including older people.”
The Government has also promised to establish a cross sectoral anti-fraud forum consisting of online platforms, telecommunications firms and financial service providers to ensure the to combat fraudsters.
Banking Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI), the industry lobby group, has agreed to apply to be certified by the Coimisiún na Meán as a so-called trusted flagger. If it is certified, it will have a privileged status for reporting illegal content such as false advertisements to online platform, according to the report.
The report said that all public bodies have been asked to put inbound-only phone numbers – such as helplines – on a “do not originate list” held by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). Telecoms operators will block calls that present as numbers from this list so they cannot be hijacked by fraudsters to deceive consumers.
The Department of Justice has also pledged to prepare legislation on a shared fraud database, as has been requested by the payments industry for some years, it said.
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