Covid Cash Handling Safety Training Module

Cash and Coronavirus

The Coronavirus specifically is transmitted via droplets when a person coughs or sneezes. If you touch these droplets and then your face, you can be at risk for carrying the virus yourself. Always wash your hands or use a sanitiser before touching your face. It is a highly contagious strain in the SARS family that has affected people via airborne particles.

Cash will never leave us. Even in these times of uncertainty and many claims of cash being unsafe, people are withdrawing and hoarding cash. If the population relaxes and begins to shop and spend again, they will have ample funds on hand to pass over to you. As states are reopening and trading is beginning again around Australia and New Zealand, cash is again being circulated more widely.

Read More: Can you catch COVID-19 from cash?

If you follow the guidelines below, you will be caring for your own wellbeing when handling cash, and also that of your customers, clients or students.

Your customers, students or clients might be apprehensive about using cash. But you can assure them, it is no different than pulling open the handle on the front door just now, pressing the button in a lift, opening the menu in your restaurant, or pressing the buttons to put your PIN into an EFT machine.

"A study in March found the virus can live on cardboard for up to 24 hours, but it did not test how long it survives on paper money. And using a plastic credit or debt card instead doesn’t eliminate risk either. The study found the virus can live on plastic for up to three days, though the work doesn’t prove that anyone has been infected by touching contaminated surfaces." - 7 News.

There will be a summary at the end and useful links to help make sure you are compliant with all Government regulations.

Important Points To Consider

Always maintain a 1.5m distance between yourself and others. If you are serving on a register or helping people in store, please make sure you remain at least 1.5 metres from the person you are serving. Some stores have placed barriers between their registers and customers. Some schools have placed desks in front of the office window to ensure students do not get too close. Please place arrows or markers on floors to ensure you are abiding by the individual location’s Covid requirements. Your Head Office or Covid Marshal will inform you of requirements for your specific location.

Every site has completed a Covid Safe Plan or Covid Management Plan and you are subject to this as well as your customers. If you have to lock doors to stop unwanted customers attending, or set up a waiting area outside the store to enable your customers to queue, please follow all recommendations for your office, store or school.

Some stores or offices, when the space permits are able to place barriers outside for queues to remain under the store or office limit, but still comply with the Covid Safe Plan requirements. If you allow people to stay in the store until you are at your Covid limit, then direct people to wait outside, you can ensure the Plan is being followed. You may have to place an employee on the door to monitor people entering the store, or your Covid Marshal may be responsible for counting people. Whoever tracks the numbers can be certain that there will be no problems should the number of people in the location be counted.

Cash can be handed over safely as the polymers used in manufacturing the Australian note means the virus cannot live on our money any longer than other common surfaces. Some countries have notes that are paper based, or cloth. These all have different lengths of time for harbouring virus droplets.

Read More: Governments quarantine banknotes as coronavirus puts ‘dirty’ money in spotlight

Safe Cash Handling

If you are concerned upon receiving cash, please use an alcohol-based sanitiser to clean your hands immediately after accepting cash from a customer. Before touching your face, ensure your hands have been cleaned. Place a pump pack of sanitiser next to the register and use it each time you accept cash.

You can also request that anyone appearing to be unwell not be admitted into your store or office. If people are unwell, they should not be in public, but should remain at home until their symptoms have eased. The ability to stay home when unwell has also had a noticeable reduction in the number of people reporting flu and cold symptoms.

Clean the EFT or ATM surfaces often. As people must input PINs or details into machines, they must be cleansed regularly to stop the spread of the virus through the plastic surfaces. Anytime a customer or student touches the PIN pad, they are bringing with them any virus droplets from other locations they have attended previously. This is how the droplets spread.

“The behavior of the virus on different surfaces "By comparing the behavior of the virus on different surfaces, it appeared that it could survive ten to a hundred times longer on stainless steel than on a banknote," explains the Banque de France. Door handles are therefore more conducive to the contagion of the virus than banknotes. The Covid-19 spreads "more difficult on porous surfaces like that of banknotes than on smooth surfaces".” - Europe 1 Digital.

If you are using your own stylus to access cash registers, or any apps, such as the SecureCash eDockets app, please remember to keep your stylus on you at all times. If you do put it down or lend it to someone, please wipe immediately with an alcohol based wipe.