Cashless business booming at Rockford's BMO, remains uncommon choice for small businesses

It’s becoming less common for Americans to carry cash on them, even when they know they’ll need to make a purchase.

With that in mind, more businesses across the country are refusing to take bills and coins.

While it's still relatively uncommon in the Rockford area, the city's largest entertainment venue — The BMO Center  — went completely cashless in 2021.

The 10,000-seat arena, which is managed by ASM Global, stopped accepting cash to streamline its concessions and ticket sales for Rockford IceHogs games and other events.

General Manager Gretchen Gilmore said it makes things easier for vendors and guests.

“Since going cashless, we’ve seen a quicker, more efficient sales process that not only improves the customer experience but has also helped reduce operational costs,” Gilmore said.

The decision was based on ASM's policy, she said.

Over at Rockford-based Candy Cloud, customers are urged the use the store's cashless, self-serve, point-of-sale system.

Owner Alex Edwards said the kiosks keep production flowing smoothly.

“It’s way more efficient,” Edwards said. “You don’t have to worry about an employee giving the wrong amount of change back. And it’s just more time tendering that cash as opposed to just tapping a card or using Apple Pay or something like that.”

Edwards said Candy Cloud still accepts cash if that's how a customer chooses to pay.

“We will never go completely cashless until that’s the standard in America,” Edwards said. “Cash is still an acceptable tender. As long as that’s the case, we won’t turn it away.”

Related: In an age of pay apps and plastic, some Rockford businesses remain cash-only. Here's why

Business cost vs. business loss

A report by California banking holding company PCBB shows that a little more than 1/5 of those who live in households with annual incomes of less than $40,000 use cash for most of the purchases.  About 14% of those who make between $40,000 and $100,000, use mainly cash. Only 5% of households that make $100,000 or more use cash on a regular basis.

According to the FDIC, 5.9 million Americans were without bank accounts in 2021. Another 48 million have tenuous relationships with financial institutions. Those numbers could grow in coming years as more people choose to avoid monthly fees and struggle to maintain minimum balances to keep accounts open.

While some business owners view cash as a burden, some say there would be a steep price to pay for hanging a “no cash” sign on the door.

“We would lose business,” said Megan Erickson-Carlson, owner of Meg’s Daily Grind in Rockford. “People still like to use cash for their small purchases like their daily coffee.”

Ditching cash also means paying more in fees to payment services and credit card companies.

Paying a processing fee each time a credit or debit card is run is something small business owners say can add up quickly.

According to Nerdwallet, the average credit card processing fee falls somewhere between 1.5% and 3.5%. That’s often in addition to terminal lease fees. To offset those costs, businesses can pass them on to customers, simply eat them or offer discounts for paying cash.

“My sales are a little over $100 right now, and my fees are already $4.83,” said Amarilis Dufoe, a barista at Inzombia Coffee in downtown Rockford. “Maybe in the corporate world they prefer (electronic payments) but for most small businesses, we prefer cash because we don’t want to have to raise prices.”

Jim Hagerty writes about business, growth and development and other general news topics for the Rockford Register Star. Email him at jhagerty@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Rockford's BMO says going cashless brought about greater efficiency