Coronavirus killed cash transactions — now we’re hoarding it instead

COVID has changed you, right? You use less cash, perhaps a lot less. 

In the first two months of the pandemic, cash withdrawals from automatic teller machines halved. Even now they are down 20 per cent.

So little-used were the main notes traditionally used for small transactions — $5 and $10 notes — that authorities stopped issuing them in the first half of 2020.

The amount of cash banked by retailers dropped by a third between February and May and, according to a new Reserve Bank study, is still much lower than it was.

Only 23 per cent of Australians surveyed in October said they had used cash for their most recent face-to-face purchase, down from more than 30 per cent before.

Of those who said they avoided using cash, 28 per…