Snapscan for beggars?

Cash is expensive. For fortunate and more affluent people, carrying cash or finding change is said to be becoming increasingly burdensome. Withdrawing cash is expensive, credit cards on phone apps can replace wallets, and change mainstays such as parking pay stations and small markets have gone cashless.

The Reserve Bank’s Digital Payments Roadmap, released earlier this year, signals an increasing move to cashless transactions. This will sharpen a dilemma coming increasingly to the fore: the cashless drive knocks those who rely on cash handouts. These include needy people and charities relying on donation tins at tills.

Cash donations are generally on the spur of the moment, and some developed countries have found there has been less spare change for the needy seeking handouts since 2015. Research suggests that cashless payments for fundraisers or for needy people in casual settings may raise barriers to donating. None of this bodes well for the needy in our country.

Should you give to beggars?

Being asked for money on the street raises a dilemma; it’s indisputable that the state is in a better position to provide for a beggar’s needs in the long term. Hence, according to Wits-based philosopher Lucy Allais the request “requires you to solve a public problem [the state’s defence of property] through a private interaction”.

On the other hand, Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer is clear: you should give if you can. “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” Singer postulates that not buying new clothes, instead hanging onto old garments, is an example of a decision of “less moral importance”. You should rather give.

Back to our cashless problem. Might “not having cash” find its way into our thoughts as an excuse to sidestep deeper questions? These deeper issues continue to plague SA at the beginning of 2025. We live in a country that ranks as the most unequal, based on some metrics.

More than 11-million South Africans are unemployed, and the circumstances of 17-million people are so dire that they qualify for the R350 Social Relief of Distress grant and stand in long queues every month to collect what is to the more affluent a paltry sum. Nearly a third of the children in our country aged under five are stunted by inadequate nutrition.

Give a handout, or donate to an organisation?

Colleagues who have experienced homelessness speak urgently about how important cash donations are, and how giving is a way of “seeing” the person in need and acknowledging their lives and agency. My colleagues were asked a tough question: should better-off people give handouts to those who ask, or should they rather donate to organisations seeking to end homelessness?

Those I asked were in a good position to make that assessment. That’s because they have had experienced both: cash donations, and benefiting from the work of service organisations helping them overcome their homelessness. Unsurprisingly, some said “Do both”. Receiving cash enables people to decide what they need most. And giving face to face shows kindness, care and a personal connection in the rough, cruel world of homelessness.

In our move away from cash we should create innovative ways to facilitate giving to those most in need, and changing the structures and policies that make and keep people poor and homeless.

A QR payment system for beggars has been in operation in China for years. In SA, the Tip4Change programme is operational, providing QR codes for gratuities for petrol attendants and car guards. Secret Love donates “heart stickers” to homeless people to sell at intersections using QR codes. Once a week the project provides the full cash amount to the vendor.

Generosity is a wonderful thing. We can multiply it, enriching our own lives and those of others through tech-savviness.