The Japanese government is determined to promote cashless payments and has set a policy target to reach 40 per cent use of cashless payment by 2027, up from 18.4 per cent in 2015. This still lags far behind other countries such as South Korea and China, each with a higher rate of cashless transactions totalling 89.1 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively. The government’s outlook on promoting a cashless society includes the issuance in 2018 of a policy document titled ‘Cashless Vision’ and the start of a massive subsidisation program to promote cashless payments in October...
BEIJING -- On her first trip to China, 30-year-old Courtney Newnham from Portland, Ore., eagerly lined up at a street pushcart to buy a skewer of candied hawthorn berries, a traditional snack. Then she realized nobody was giving the pushcart guy money. "Everyone was just scanning and walking away, and I was like, 'Wait, what?' " she said. She left empty-handed. China was never an easy place for tourists, but lately just about everything seems to have gone square-shaped -- as in the payment-app QR code needed to unlock much of the Middle Kingdom. It's how people hail taxis, consult doctors,...
New Delhi: The Indian Government's core objective of carrying out -- demonetisation -- three years ago, has remained unfulfilled, with data showing an increase in the level of hard currency in the system. It was on November 8, 2016, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated demonetisation, an action that took the country by surprise. It was envisaged with an aim of eradicating black money and curbing dependence on the cash economy. However, the Reserve Bank of India's data showed that cash with the public as of October 25, 2019, stood at Rs 21,89,781 crore, a 15.2 per cent higher...
Cash is king in Japan, and more so for the country’s fast-ageing population who are still deeply reluctant to give it up. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to make more Japanese - the world’s most dedicated cash-hoarders – switch to using cashless payments is producing some success, but not nearly as much as desired. A growing rank of the nation’s elderly pensioners are resisting change, which could see Japan fall further behind its peers in adopting mobile app payments and electronic money. Tokyo wants to double the ratio of cashless settlements to 40% by 2025 and to 80%...
In most of Kigali’s business outlets, a client paying for a product or service via Mobile Money is often required to add at least Rwf300 considered as withdrawal charges. This renders cashless payments more expensive than paying cash over the counter and has led to reluctance by entrepreneurs to embrace the cashless payment system that the Government, through the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR), promotes. This could also explain why despite the growth of mobile money penetration and transactions over the years, much of the money is cashed out or used for airtime purchases....
Modern finance requires a lot of trust, and its digital future will demand still more. If, for example, electronic payments are to replace cash, people must be willing to believe that the bits of data traveling among phones, cards, terminals and blockchains actually represent something of value. So will they be? Judging from their growing predilection for physical currency, maybe not. At first glance, cash would appear to be on its way out. Sweden has almost eliminated its use for payments. In America, home of the almighty dollar, almost a third of the population gets through...
The collapse of cash in Britain has been dramatic. There were 11.5 billion fewer cash transactions in 2018 than in 2008 – a decline of 51pc. It’s a pace of change that has surprised everyone, even industry insiders. “The rise of the debit card and the decline of cash is the phenomenon of the last decade,” says Adrian Buckle, head of research for UK Finance, the banking sector trade body. But Britain, while on the podium, is not the world champion in cashless. That title goes to Sweden, where demand for notes and coins is so limp that cash is literally disappearing: the...
The potential disappearance of cash is a big worry for a lot of people in the UK at the moment. With every report of cash machines being removed, physical money use declining, or bank branches shutting, fears grow that society is heading for a cashless future. So, imagine what would happen if the Government suddenly announced plans to axe almost 90 per cent of banknotes in circulation? That is what India did and a new report from Harvard University has analysed the effects. Predictably, it caused chaos, as while Indians were quick to return the old banknotes, replacement ones came more...
DIGITAL transformation has hit countries around the globe. The Lion City is one of the world's top hotbeds for technology and innovation today. In fact, Singapore accounted for a quarter of the nearly US$6 billion in capital invested in South-east Asia's technology firms during the first half of this year. Specifically, fintech investments were found to have nearly quadrupled from a year ago to US$453 million in the first half of 2019, making Singapore the third-largest fintech market by funds in the Asia-Pacific. With a huge potential such as this, fintechs need to realise the...
Several banks have come under fire for charging fees when customers make loan and credit card payments with cash or cheques over the counter or through deposit machines. At least two other banks have announced they would do the same from next month. The Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) says the fees are imposed to “encourage customers to move from cash to electronic payments” but consumer groups argue that this practice is unfair to those who do not do their banking via digital channels. The fee for making credit card and loan payments over the counter with cash or cheques is RM2...
