Cashless Economy

A Plymouth man is raging about the fact he can't park up on Plymouth Hoe unless he has a debit card or a mobile to hand. Chris Whitby contacted PlymouthLive as he feels motorists' daily freedoms are being curbed because they can't use old fashioned cash to get a ticket in the meter. He often visits the Hoe, he says, and on every trip there in the last few weeks, he’s noticed payment machines don't accept money. Worried about get fined for not being able to pay for his parking on a visit earlier this week, Chris approached a parking attendant – and was shocked to hear that Plymouth City...

As countries, especially developed economies, are paying accelerating efforts on developing official digital currencies, India has also repeated its intention to follow up the agenda, with latest efforts on weighing a new law to ban private crypto-currencies and to pave the way for official digital currency issuance. However, with currently insufficient financial and technological prerequisites, it may not be a mature decision for India. India considers to roll out a law to ban private crypto-currencies including bitcoin, which will "create a facilitative framework for creation of the...

Rishi Sunak MP has been criticised follow an announcement that more banks are closing in his constituency. The MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer used his March 2020 budget to promise alternative facilities for vulnerable and rural communities who rely on cash. But local campaigners say the chancellor is letting down his own voters as HSBC announced the closure of its last two branches in the constituency. The banking giant says its Richmond and Northallerton branches will shut this year, following Hawes, Leyburn and Stokesley which shut in the last rounds of closures. Read more

The increased use of contactless and digital payments during the pandemic will not lead to the exclusion of cash payments in Ireland, the minister for finance has said. The rise in digital financial services has seen some retailers refuse to accept cash but has led to concerns that vulnerable groups who rely on cash payments could be excluded. The issue was raised in the Dáil recently where Labour Party spokesperson for finance Ged Nash asked the minister, Paschal Donohoe, if legislation was planned to ban digital-only payments. The minister confirmed that, currently, a retailer can...

China's push towards creating a cashless society is meeting some resistance from the country's central bank. Late last year, the People's Bank of China(PBOC), the country's central bank, fined 16 public and private organizations for refusing to accept cash payments, the bank revealed in a statement last week. The central bank's action was aimed at maintaining the circulation of China's paper yuan currency and to "protect the rights of the public to use cash," the PBOC said. The bank said it fined organizations between 500 yuan ($77) and 500,000 yuan ($77,236) for taking "discriminatory" or...

Over a decade ago, Alipay launched in China, promising easy online transactions for all. A few years later, Chinese super app WeChat introduced a similar mobile payment service called WeChat Pay to its millions of users. Today, the two platforms are ubiquitous on smartphones all over the country, driving a mobile-driven revolution that has made China one of the most cashless societies in the world. Those living there say they’ve survived for years without a wallet.7 China is home to about 1.4 billion people, and hundreds of millions of them rely on smartphones to pay for anything and...

Together with Germans and Greeks, Italians have long been the most stubborn and steadfast of Europeans in their love of cash. For years, they have resisted cards and digital payments and viewed with deep suspicion most campaigns to convert them. To a significant extent, they also saved in physical notes, especially older adults, keeping their “rainy day” funds outside the Italian banking system, which has given them plenty of reasons to question and to mistrust. Just a year ago, there was no reason to think this defiance would waver, at least not anytime soon. But then the pandemic hit,...

When is the last time you paid for something in cash? Have you, like us, had the same €20 in your pocket for four months? The pandemic has made Ireland -- and every other country -- into largely cashless societies. From Apple Pay on your watch to Revolut on your phone, cash has faded away in daily life. So why aren’t we talking about the obvious next step: ditching bits of paper and scraggly coins altogether? This is what Adrian discusses with this week’s guest, Stephen Kinsella, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Limerick's Kemmy Business School and a columnist with...

In one year, the cash supply grew 22% as people held on to it to deal with downturns and medical emergencies.  While the Covid-19 pandemic has provided a fillip to cashless transactions globally in a socially distanced world, cash continues to be king in India. Recent data released by the Reserve Bank of India states that currency in circulation grew by about 13% in the first nine months of the current fiscal year as people preferred holding cash as a precautionary measure amid the uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. As of January 1 this year, the currency in circulation...