Brazilian retail loses billions with cash management failures

While retail focuses on digital innovation, omnichannel promotions and consumer loyalty, a silent villain continues to bleed the cash of companies: poor cash management.It is estimated that Brazilian retail loses billions of dollars a year with failures, deviations, errors and inefficiencies linked to the flow of physical money.

According to the World Bank, more than 38% of payments in Brazilian retail are still made in cash index that rises to more than 60% in peripheral regions and in the interior. Despite the rise of PIX and digital wallets, paper money remains an operational reality for thousands of physical stores.

WorldPay's Global Payments Report 2025 shows that in 2014 cash and cards accounted for 97% of retail purchases in physical Points of Sale (POS), while digital payments corresponded to only 3%. By 2024, digital payments will account for 38%, while cash and cards usage has dropped to 62%. The projection for 2030 indicates that physical cash and cards will continue to be relevant, with a 47% share in PDVs.

The number of banknotes in circulation at the end of 2024 was 7.72 billion, the largest volume since 2020. In 2024, only 22 % of purchases in Brazil were made in cash, while the rest was with card, PIX and other electronic media.But although PIX has gained strength, money is still a relevant part of the everyday economy & especially in face-to-face retail segments.

In March 2025, physical cash in circulation reached R$ 349.2 billion, of which R$ 340 billion in banknotes and R$ 8.4 billion in coins, according to the Central Bank. “It is not money itself that represents risk, but the way it is managed. Retail needs to treat cash with the same intelligence and automation applied to digital channels”, says Hailton Santos, commercial director of Sesami (www.sesami.io), a company that is a reference in effective and innovative solutions for security, productivity and management in the retail, banking and cash segments.

International studies indicate that cash shrinkage (i.e., losses related to handling and transporting cash 0.3% to 0.7% of annual retail sales.In a company that bills R$ 1 billion, this can mean up to R$ 7 million annual loss, invisible to the eyes of the manager.

The causes are diverse: human failures in counting and closing cash, lack of traceability by operator, unsafe transportation of values between store and bank and unproductive time of employees managing money manually.

Smart solutions without losses Sesami has technologies such as smart safes and recyclers that are changing the logic of physical retail.In an automated money management system, banknotes and coins are automatically accounted for and validated, generating a final report with all amounts deposited throughout the day, the reconciliation process is optimized.

With the smart safe, the retailer ensures the cash counting automatically, monitoring the cash volume and can have an integration with the value transportation companies.It performs banknote counting, rejects fake banknotes and issues reports with data on deposits, the smart safe optimizes staff time and helps improve cash management.

Cash automation is already standard in large global retailers. In Brazil, large supermarket, fashion and pharmacy chains have already started this transformation with Sesami (optimizing time, security and financial performance. “Today, the minimum cost for the retailer to control cash revolves around 20% (can reach 50%).We are talking about that, every R$ 100 that he has, R$ 20 spends to control it. There are the costs with treasury and costs of operating costs for a high sector, for example are Santos.

Another safe and efficient way to handle money and eliminate cash differences is the closed cash management cycle.It replaces the manual cash register drawer with a system that recycles and protects money, from the moment it leaves the customer's hand until it reaches the counting center in the rear (backoffice). The customer makes the direct payment on the device and receives its change, if there is, automatically, either in banknotes and/or coins. The treasury work will be the collection of the money stored at the end of the cashier's day operation.

Benefits through a software ¡ ̄ All the benefits provided by Sesami's vaults and recyclers are generated from the company's developed software, Sesami Enterprise Software, which allows the management of operations in an intelligent and real-time manner.With its modules, it allows business reporting and analysis, data and connectivity sharing, monitoring and optimization of services and end-to-end cash reconciliation.