Forgot your wallet? Cardless cash could help

Have you ever left home only to realise that you’ve forgotten your wallet? Or maybe you’ve lost your bank card and you need access to cash? Some banks offer a feature called ‘Cardless Cash’ which may help you to get out of sticky situations like this.

What is Cardless Cash?

Cardless Cash allows you to withdraw money from an ATM using your phone, rather than your bank card. This might come in handy if you’ve left your wallet at home or if your card is lost or stolen.

Cardless Cash was first launched in Australia in 2014 by CommBank. Since then, millions of customers have been using the feature.

“We have seen over 12.4 million Cardless Cash withdrawals initiated during FY20,” CommBank’s General Manager of Digital Banking Jessica Gleeson told Canstar.

Cardless Cash is now offered by a handful of other banks in Australia, although with a reduction in cash transactions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it remains to be seen whether demand for this kind of service will remain as high in the future.

Which banks have Cardless Cash?

Cardless Cash is currently offered by CommBank and Westpac (including its subsidiaries Bank of Melbourne, BankSA and St.George). ANZ offers a similar feature that uses a digital wallet. At the time of writing, NAB does not offer Cardless Cash.

Source: Providers’ websites as at 18/8/20.

How can I do a Cardless Cash withdrawal?

There are two different ways to make a Cardless Cash withdrawal, depending on who you bank with.

With CommBank and Westpac Group, withdrawals are made using the bank’s app. You select ‘Cardless Cash’ from the menu and choose how much you want to withdraw (both banks limit withdrawals to $500 per day, with Westpac Group also limiting withdrawals to $1,000 per week). You are then given a code to authenticate your request. In addition to a code, CommBank sends a separate PIN to your mobile phone.

To withdraw the cash, you enter the code and/or PIN into an eligible ATM before it expires (CommBank gives you 30 minutes, whereas Westpac Group gives you three hours). CommBank and Westpac Group also allow you to share your code with another person, so they can withdraw the cash instead of you.

ANZ takes a different approach, allowing you to make withdrawals using your phone’s digital wallet (for example, through Apple Pay or Google Pay). To withdraw cash, you head to an eligible ANZ ATM, tap your device on the ATM’s contactless symbol and enter your normal PIN. You can then transact as you would with your physical card.

There are generally no costs associated with using Cardless Cash. However, if you are using your credit card rather than debit card to withdraw cash from an ATM you will generally be charged a cash advance fee plus interest.

Watch out for scams

In December last year, the ATO reported a spike in scams targeting Cardless Cash users. According to the ATO, scammers convinced people that they owed a tax debt and then asked them to set up Cardless Cash and give them the code. Scammers then used this code to withdraw money from ATMs. One Sydneysider reportedly lost $500 through this tactic.

The ATO has said that it will never request payments of a debt via Cardless Cash or methods like iTunes or Google Play cards, prepaid Visa cards, cryptocurrency or direct credit to a personal bank account.

Ms Gleeson noted that if a scammer doesn’t have access to your bank’s app, they won’t be able to authenticate a Cardless Cash withdrawal.

If you are using the Cardless Cash feature, it’s important to keep your code secure.

This article was reviewed by our Sub-Editor Jacqueline Belesky and Finance Editor Sean Callery before it was published, as part of our fact-checking process.

Main image source: hedgehog94 (Shutterstock).