| Cash is useful stuff but you wouldn't want to carry too much of it: it is bulky and can be easily lost or stolen. Money in the bank is much more convenient and normally yields a modest return. These days one can easily make payments from bank accounts – even in very small amounts – using our ubiquitous debit cards.
On the other hand – is the money you have on deposit with the bank really safe? Bank deposits rest on the delusion of crowds: in theory, you should always be able to take out all of your money deposited in cash as and when you want. But we have always known that if everybody did this at the same time, the bank would crash – since no bank ever holds more than a tiny fraction of its total assets in notes and coin. This is exactly what happened in the UK in the case of Northern Rock in September 2007. That was the first bank run in the UK since the 1860s when they were frequent. The novels of Dickens, such as Martin Chuzzlewit, are full of good old-fashioned runs on banks. | 
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