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An ongoing effort to expand EZPass beyond its original purpose - letting commuters in nine eastern states pay tolls faster - has revived questions about the demand for closed-community stored-value systems.
April 1
ORLANDO — Cash may no longer be king, but has it been relegated to court jester?
The head of Sovereign Bank's cards and payments division described his recent experiment of going cashless for a day, at the annual Card Forum and Expo.
"I decided to see, can I live a day without cash?" Eduardo Tobon said during a speech Thursday.
He cooked up the idea on the eve of a visit to some of the bank's branches in New Jersey; he lives near Boston. Sovereign is owned by Banco Santander in Spain.
"I got a taxi with my card, I got to the airport fine, I got eventually to my rental car, absolutely fine, visited a bunch of branches -- it was perfect, no problem, and got some lunch …" Tobon explained. "I had to drive from the southern part of New Jersey to the north … and that's when it hit me: tolls. Only cash."
"OK, What do I do? I don't want to just run through it and get a fine," Tobon joked.
(He's apparently without
Tobon ultimately collected envelopes from each of the tolls, promising to mail in the money.
"I got three envelopes. … I get home and I said to my wife, 'Honey I'm going to ask you a favor, do you mind sending checks to those folks?'" he said. "It's unbelievable we still have to do this. But it's the reality of the society we live in."
Sovereign wants to move more consumers away from cash to debit and credit, he said.
"Merchants, the government and financial institutions would prefer not to have cash in the system. Tender is the not the best possible way to manage the system. … But the reality is it's difficult to move away from," Tobon said.
Card Forum and Expo is a conference sponsored by American Banker and its parent company, SourceMedia.
