A coffee shop in Baltimore stops accepting cash as a safety precaution and our thematic investment lens takes notice
After his business was robbed for the fifth time in just over three months, the owner of Park Cafe & Coffee Bar in Baltimore decided to do something that would have seemed radical for a neighborhood business just a few years ago: He stopped taking cash. It was a desperation move, but what happened next surprised owner David Hart. His sales didn’t go down.
A business not accepting cash doesn’t seem odd no the face of it — most of us here at Tematica rarely even have cash on us to pay so we would probably not even notice when frequenting this coffee shop. For us, the lack of cash is not a security issue, it’s a choice of convenience — it’s just faster and simpler to swipe a credit card and not carry much cash. Plus, who has time to go to the bank and get cash or get hit up with ATM fees?
But in this age of identity theft, cyber-attacks, phishing scams and credit card theft it is a little odd to see a business give up on greenbacks as a safety issue, particularly a small business whose tight margins can be stretched with excessive transaction fees from credit card processors. But those transaction fees are probably a small price to pay than having your entire sales for the day gone in 60 seconds. Guess it’s either go cashless or start the process of obtaining a handgun license.
This, however, is a prime example of why in our Safety & Security investment theme we take a much broader perspective on the issue. It was a perspective we brought up again and again and again at the Inside ETF Conference just last week in Hollywood, FL. We see the drive for more security impacting all aspects of our lives — corporate security, personal security, homeland security — which when combined provide a great backdrop for an investment theme. And in many cases, one component drives another — if someone is more aware of one component, they are bound to be more aware of the other aspects.
It’s a perfect example of why in our view what the difference is between an investment theme versus many of the so-called thematic ETF’s available to investors. We view most of them as really either sub-sector ETF’s or funds riding the wave of a hot trend. Yes, there is the Cybersecurity ETF — HACK — as well as the mobile payments ETF called iPAY. But where does homeland security fit in there or personal security?
If you are reading between the lines, yes, our attendance at the Inside ETF conference and this post of one our investment themes isn’t a coincidence. More to come in the next couple of months. To stay in the loop, check out the various Tematica Research Membership options here.
And if you are interested in reading more about how we view the difference between a true investment theme versus a trend, we suggest you take a look at this article we wrote for Business Insider: Here’s how thematic investing really work
