Our work to help vendors go cashless is up for a Financial Inclusion Award

The Big Issue’s work to enable vendors to offer contactless payments is in the running for the Financial Inclusion Award at next week’s FStech Awards.

With society becoming increasingly cashless, we teamed up with Swedish tech firm iZettle in December 2018 to start offering vendors card machines to go cashless.

The trial proved a success and card machines were then made available to all vendors from September and, as of December, 133 vendors across the UK had embraced contactless payments with more offering cashless transactions all the time.

So chuffed to be shortlisted for the @FStechAwards Financial Inclusion award for our work @BigIssue in supporting vendors to go cashless with @iZettle 🎉 #cashless #cashlessbigissue #FinancialInclusion https://t.co/QYn1NpJx2y

— Beth Thomas (@BethTBI) March 12, 2020

It’s a necessary step to keep vendors from falling behind in a society where 80 per cent of total payments are now made by tapping a card.

That has caught the attention of the FStech Awards and we are nominated in the Financial Inclusion Award category, going up against banking heavyweights like Natwest and eight other contenders.

The event is still scheduled to take place at the London Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square on March 19.

The Big Issue’s head of partnerships and programmes Beth Thomas said: “So chuffed to be shortlisted for the FStech Awards Financial Inclusion Award for our work at The Big Issue in supporting vendors to go cashless with iZettle.”

And remember that vendors are still out working on the streets across the country. Get your copy of this week’s Ben Eine-edited Art Special magazine, with three different highly collectable covers, from a vendor today.