But it is the speed at which the technological advancements have reached that has forced traditionally slow-moving financial institutions to heavily invest to remain relevant to their consumers and remain competitive in the marketplace.
Personal
Banking is one of the oldest businesses in the world, going back centuries ago, in fact, the oldest bank in operation today is the Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472. The first instance of a non-cash transaction came in the 20th century, when charga-plates were first invented. Considered a predecessor to the credit card, department stores brought these out to select customers and each time a purchase was made, the plates would be pressed and inked onto a sales slip.
Once the sales cycle was over, customers were expected to pay what they were owed to the store, however due to their singular location use, it made them rather limiting, thus paving way for the credit card, where customers that had access to one could apply the same transactional process to multiple stores and stations, all in one place.
Contactless
Leisurely spending has changed that much that we can now pay for items and services from the watches we wear on our wrists, but it wasn’t always this easy. Just over a few decades ago, individuals were expected to physically travel to their nearest bank to pay their bills, and had no choice but to carry around loose change and cash on their person, a practice that is a dying art in today’s society, kept afloat by the reducing population born before technology.
Although the first instances of contactless cards came about in the mid-90’s, the very first contactless cards associated with banking were first brought into circulation by Barclaycard in 2008, with now more than £40 million being issued, despite there being an initial skepticism towards the unfamiliar use of this type of payment method.
Business
Due to the changes in the financial industry leaning heavily towards a more virtual experience, traditional brick and mortar banks where the older generation still go to, to sort out their finances, are now in rapid decline. Banks are closing at a rate of 60 per month nationwide, with some villages, such as Llandysul closing all four of its banks along with a post office leaving it a ghost town.
The elderly residents of the small town were then forced into a 30-mile round trip in order to access her nearest banking services. With technology not for everyone, those that weren’t taught technology at a younger age or at all are feeling the effects most, almost feeling shut out, despite many banks offering day-to-day banking services through more than 11,000 post office branches, offering yet a lifeline for those struggling with the new business model of financial firms.
Future innovations
As the amount of digital natives increases year on year, the demand for a contemporary banking service continues to encourage the banking industries to stay on their toes as far as the newest innovations go.
Pierre Vannineuse, CEO and Founder of Alternative Investment firm Alpha Blue Ocean, gives his comments about the future of banking services, saying: “Artificial intelligence is continuing to brew in the background and will no doubt feature prominently in the years to come. With many automated chatbots and virtual assistants already taking most of the customer service roles, we are bound to see a more prominent role of AI in how transactions are processed from all levels.”
Technology may have taken its time to get to where it is now, but the way in which it adapts and updates in the modern era has allowed it to quicken its own pace so that new processes spring up thick and fast. Technology has given us a sense of instant gratification, either in business or in leisure, we want things done now not in day or a week down the line.
Sources: https://www.sysco-software.com/7-emerging-trends-that-are-changing-finance-1-evolving-cfo-role/ https://www.vox.com/ad/16554798/banking-technology-credit-debit-cards https://transferwise.com/gb/blog/5-ways-technology-has-changed-banking https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2016/08/30/five-major-changes-that-will-impact-the-finance-industry-in-the-next-two-years/#61cbe952ae3e
Decimal Day on 15 February 1971 replaced shillings with pounds and pence. Ireland went one step further when it announced in 1999 that it would swap pounds for euros and this came to fruition in 2002. While the UK remained adamant they wouldn’t join the euro, something else has eclipsed the possibility that we might exchange our sterling for something more continental – the fact that we might not deal with any money whatsoever. There are calls from some people to begin the process of foregoing cash and replacing it with digital payment methods instead. But, will society ever go cashless?
The Argument for a Cashless Society
Since contactless was introduced, almost two-thirds of people in the UK use contactless payments, while June 2018 saw cashless payments eclipse those who used traditional cash methods. Indeed, with the rise of Monzo, customers are encouraged to spend via their card to track what they are spending and where. This allows you to make better choices. Bus companies, such as First, have begun accepting contactless payments on their buses as well as payment via an app, which offers discounted fares. Even vending machines allow card payments, while traditionally cash-centric parking meters also offer you to pay through digital means that bypass cash methods. Many industries already use cashless methods. For example, when you play online slots at Magical Vegas, there are several digital payment options to choose from for depositing and withdrawing any winnings you make, which matches the modern technology used in the video slots. These include Paysafecard, Neteller, Skrill and Paypal as well as Visa and Mastercard.
Why Might Cashless Be Bad?
Of course, the issue with switching to contactless, smartphone payments or even just relying on chip and pin, is that there is a portion of the country who either have no access to this or wouldn’t feel comfortable using it. A fixed address is necessary for a bank account, so those who live without one would be left without the money they might otherwise be able to access. Without physical money, everything relies on big data to ensure our details and bank accounts correspond. With so much money in accessible accounts, crime that mines our personal financial data may increase, especially in the advent of a data breach, which isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Anecdotally, many say they struggle to manage their finances when they don’t have the actual cash, claiming contactless makes it easier to overspend because the money is less tangible. One of the main concerns for a cashless society is the fact that we would be at the mercy of technology – and that something that might affect this, even a simple power cut, could leave us penniless.
Cashless society may seem futuristic, but we are already making some waves in that area. While there are enough cons to ensure that we will never fully go cashless, instead it will likely be made easier to opt out of using cash as a matter of personal preference.
Contactless, or “tap and go,” is an increasingly popular way to pay around the world. But in the U.S., only 3 percent of cards are contactless. Why?
The study, which looks at cash and cashless technology usage in four markets—the UK, Australia, Brazil, and South Africa—shows that a cashless society may not be a realistic ambition. In fact, the survey revealed an “immovable” 24% of consumers who will never abandon cash—no matter what technological advance or leap forward is available to them.
In Brazil and South Africa, where cash use is more common, there is a strong desire for wider acceptance of cashless technologies such as payment cards and digital wallets. In both markets, 60% say that they are worried about having cash stolen from them which suggests fear of theft is a key driver rather than convenience.
In the UK and Australia, however, where the use of cashless technologies is more widespread, people are happier with their use of cash. Around 80% of people in both markets say that they are comfortable using cash.
Respondents across all countries saw cash as part of their day-to-day lives. They carry cash at all times, replenishing their wallets and purses regularly at ATMs, and are unwilling to go that last extra mile and never use cash again.
The findings suggest that cashless technologies will not replace cash completely; instead people are happier with an equilibrium between the two.
“While the proliferation of cashless payment technologies has generally led to a reduction in cash usage across developed economies, banknotes have unique properties that consumers value, such as security against fraud,” said Michael Batley, Head of Strategy, Travelex. “As long as this is the case it’s unlikely that any attempts to abandon cash completely will succeed. Even Sweden’s bid to go cashless, touted as a successful model, has seen pushback. Ultimately, only consumer demand will drive the change towards a truly cashless society and our research indicates this is further away than many realise.”
As well as revealing a lack of appetite for a cashless society, the study also reveals that opinion is split on whether it is even possible. The UK, the most ‘cashless’ country surveyed, represented the highest proportion (47%) of respondents that do not see an end to cash, closely followed by Australia (42%).
Travelex commissioned Sapio Research to survey 1,000 consumers regarding their attitudes to cash and cashless technology across four markets: the UK, Australia, Brazil and South Africa. These four countries are at different points in the “journey towards cashlessness”, as defined by Mastercard’s Measuring progress toward a cashless society report, and together give a representative overview.
(Source: Travelex)
In 1880, we introduced the first ever credit voucher, which led the way as a pre-curser to credit cards and the likes, followed by the reveal of metal deferred payment cards from Western Union in 1914 and subsequently several appearances of payment or credit cards that allowed to users to credit shop at specific stores, like Diner’s Club, the first independent credit card company in the world.
Since American Express made credit cards popular in 1958, the idea of buying with cash that isn’t yet available to the buyer has evolved into the concept of cashless buying with money we do have. The accessibility, ease and efficiency of credit cards led to a culture, globally, that accepts plastic cards as the norm. The industry 4.0 revolution now presents the next stage in said evolution, whereby we are experiencing the proliferation of contactless payments, both via plastic debit cards and more recently, via smartphones.
2017 marked ten years since contactless was introduced, so it may still be another 10 years until we see an almost complete eradication of cash from western society. Currently, contactless payments account for just over a third of all payments in the UK. Equally over a third agree that the UK will be cashless in another 10 years. The further spread of contactless via mobile, which would only go to shorten those 10 years, is however hindered by the need to link a bank account with the customer’s smartphone, making this option inaccessible to a greater part of the world’s consumers.
A recent study conducted by Forex Bonuses reveals that Canada is currently number one in the list of top cashless countries worldwide , with 57% of transactions nationally being made without cash, as opposed to 2% in Sweden and France, 52% in the UK, and 10% in China. In China however, 77% of people said they were aware of cashless options, which could mean potential for a huge boost of cashless transactions in years to come. All in all though, 83% of global transactions are in cash, according to Western Union.
The ease of cashless transactions proves the potential for revolutionary popularity, as with a flick of a finger or a swipe of the thumb, all liquid assets can be accessed and moved around. The secondary benefits are the effect a cashless society can have on crime, both in terms of banks & financial institutions, as well as street crime and potential for muggings. In addition, though most cash payments do result in a printed receipt, digital records of transactions are few and far between, and whether by blockchain or other, documenting digital footprints for transactions has the capacity to help governments better set policy, tax citizens and stop fraud, as well as help banks to better monitor financial spheres and adjust rates and inflation accordingly. The introduction of Open Banking will also only go to facilitate these benefits in the digital payments sphere.
So, why are we not already making the world completely cashless and sending all our money to be burnt? One question we should ask first is whether this is truly something people want. Bloomberg reports that a recent move by Indian authorities to remove 86% of cash in circulation proved to be difficult, and shocked many cash dependent markets. The poor especially depend highly on using cash, and making everything digital could put lower earners at a serious disadvantage and the prospect of governments and banks having so much control of people’s finances does pose further concerns. Another major issue is that while street crime and fraud could be better monitored and prevented, cybercrime could rise in equal or greater measure, depending on the vulnerability of transaction systems.
Further on the topic of cybercrime, back in the day ‘looking over your shoulder’ referred to watching your back for pickpockets; that then became about being aware of criminals stealing your PIN, but the new risks are money swiping and the potential for losing your contactless card, which can then be used by whoever finds it or picks it up. Equifax recommends lining your wallet to eliminate the risk of signal and antenna making contact in a money swipe grab, which in essence, is today’s version of pickpocketing.
Bitcoin and the blockchain are proving useful in the payments security sphere, but in their short-lived popularity have already displayed weaknesses and risks that will need time to fix. Equally, infrastructure will have to keep up, as Visa have already showed that IT outages can cause serious disruptions, leaving users unable to make or take payments. On top of this, connections are required to record and document the data, as well as transfer information between the buyer, seller and bank; if the connection is affected in any way, this can create major difficulties. With cash, these issues don’t really exist.
Though no longer king, cash is still the biggest way of actioning transactions around the world, and the physical act of exchanging money still feels the most secure and manageable for most. It’s still also the go-to fall back when the ole’ chip and pin doesn’t work, so it’s still very much in play, in fact the growth of cash circulation outpaced economic growth over the last 10 years. Despite the fact there has never been more cash in circulation worldwide, we are slowly moving towards a cashless society, but the eventuality of a 100% cash free world is still highly debatable.
What do you think? Would you be prepared to burn all your cash in return for liquid assets and the promise of a risk-free digital payments sphere?
Sources: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ten-years-of-contactless-payments-ck00rsx9p http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/history_of_cards/index.asp https://www.finance-monthly.com/2018/07/over-a-third-think-the-uk-will-be-cashless-in-10-years-or-less/ https://www.finance-monthly.com/2017/02/a-cashless-society-the-urban-myth-of-2017/ https://www.finance-monthly.com/2018/08/high-level-of-cyber-security-and-cashless-go-hand-in-hand/ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-contactless-is-quick-and-easy-for-fraudsters-8dg6dfbfq https://www.equifax.co.uk/resources/identity_protection/how_to_avoid_contactless_card_fraud.html https://www.finance-monthly.com/2017/02/a-cashless-society-the-urban-myth-of-2017/ https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/20/news/economy/cash-circulation-payment/index.html
With the future looking more cashless by the day, the future of cybersecurity looks even more risk heavy. Below Nick Hammond, Lead Advisor for Financial Services at World Wide Technology, discusses with Finance Monthly how banks/financial services firms can ensure a high level of cyber security as we move towards a cashless society.
Debit card payments have overtaken cash use for the first time in the UK. A total of 13.2 billion debit card payments were made in the last year and an estimated 3.4 million people hardly use cash at all, according to banking trade body UK Finance.[1] But with more people in the UK shunning cash in favour of new payments technology, including wearable devices and payment apps as well as debit and credit cards, the effects of IT outages could be more crippling than ever.
Take Visa’s recent crash, for example, which left people unable to buy things or complete transactions. Ultimately, payment providers were unable to receive or send money, causing serious disruption for users. And all because of one hardware issue. Finding new ways to mitigate the risk of system outages is a growing area of focus for financial services firms.
Application Assurance
At a typical bank, there will be around 3,500 software applications which help the bank to deliver all of its services. Of these, about 50-60 are absolutely mission critical. If any of these critical applications goes down, it could result in serious financial, commercial and often regulatory impact.
If the payments processing system goes down, for instance, even for as little as two hours in a whole year, there will be serious impact on the organisation and its customers. The more payments systems change to adapt to new payments technology, the more firms focus their efforts on ensuring that their applications are healthy and functioning properly. As Visa’s recent hardware problems show, much of this work to assure critical applications must lead firms back to the infrastructure that their software runs on.
Having a high level of assurance requires financial services firms to ensure that applications, such as credit card payment systems, are in good health and platformed on modern, standardised infrastructure. Things become tricky when shiny new applications are still tied into creaking legacy systems. For example, if a firm has an application which is running on Windows 2000, or is taking data from an old database elsewhere within the system, it can be difficult for banks to map how they interweave. Consequently, it then becomes difficult to confidently and accurately map all of the system interdependencies which must be understood before attempting to move or upgrade applications.
Protecting the Crown Jewels
Changes to the way financial services firms use technology means that information cannot simply be kept on a closed system and protected from external threats by a firewall. Following the enforcement of Open Banking in January 2018, financial services firms are now required to facilitate third party access to their customers’ accounts via an open Application Programming Interface (API). The software intermediary provides a standardised platform and acts as a gateway to the data, making it essential that banks, financial institutions, and fintechs have the appropriate technology in place.
In addition, data gets stored on employee and customer devices due to the rise of online banking and bring-your- own- device schemes. The proliferation of online and mobile banking, cloud computing, third-party data storage and apps is a double edged sword: while enabling innovative advances, they have also blurred the perimeter around which firms used to be able to build a firewall. is no longer possible to draw a perimeter around the whole system, so firms are now taking the approach of protecting each application individually, ensuring that they are only allowed to share data with other applications that need it.
Financial services firms are increasingly moving away from a product-centric approach to cyber-security. In order to protect their crown jewels, they are focusing on compartmentalising and individually securing their critical applications, such as credit card payment systems, in order to prevent a domino effect if one area comes under attack. But due to archaic legacy infrastructure, it can be difficult for financial institutions to gauge how applications are built into the network and communicating with each other in real-time.
To make matters more difficult, documentation about how pieces of the architecture have been built over the years often no longer exists within the organisation. What began as relatively simple structures twenty years ago have been patched and re-patched in various ways and stitched together. The teams who setup the original systems have often moved on from the firm, and their knowledge of the original body has gone with them.
The Next Steps
So how can this problem be overcome? Understanding how applications are built into the system and how they speak to one another is a crucial first step when it comes to writing security policies for individual applications. Companies are trying to gain a clear insight into infrastructure, and to create a real-time picture of the entire network.
As our society moves further away from cash payments and more towards payments technology , banks need the confidence to know that their payments systems are running, available and secure at all times. In order to ensure this, companies can install applications on a production network before installation on the real system. This involves creating a test environment that emulates the “real” network as closely as possible. Financial players can create a software testing environment that is cost-effective and scalable by using virtualisation software to install multiple instances of the same or different operating systems on the same physical machine.
As their network grows, additional physical machines can be added to grow the test environment. This will continue to simulate the production network and allow for the avoidance of costly mistakes in deploying new operating systems and applications, or making big configuration changes to the software or network infrastructure.
Due to the growth in payments data, application owners and compliance officers need to be open to talking about infrastructure, and get a clear sense of whether their critical applications are healthy, so that they can assure them and wrap security policies around them. An in-depth understanding of the existing systems will enable financial services firms to then upgrade current processes, complete documentation and implement standards to mitigate risk.
[1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/card-payments-overtake-cash-in-uk-first-time-2018-6
Online research from Equifax, the consumer and business insights expert, reveals over a third (37%) of Brits believe the UK will be a cashless society within the next 10 years. Over half (53%) of 16-34 years olds believe we’ll be reliant on digital and card payments by 2028, compared to just 22% of those aged 55 or above.
However, the research shows that while the use of cash is declining1, it still has its fans. In the survey, conducted with Gorkana, respondents said coins are their top payment choice for vending machines (60%), parking meters (57%), charity donations (53%), and buses (52%), and paying with notes is the preference for taxis (42%).
While 46% of people use cash less often that they did three years ago, more than half (54%) of respondents use cash either as or more often, and almost three in five (59%) think shops, cafes or market stalls that only accept cash are convenient.
The findings also highlight that although the use of digital payments via contactless cards and online transactions is growing rapidly1, some people are still wary about security. Over a quarter (27%) of respondents don’t feel confident payments via websites or contactless cards are secure, and 26% think it’s difficult to track money spent using digital methods.
Sarah Lewis, Head of ID and Fraud at Equifax, said: “We’re in the midst of an exciting smart payments revolution. We can pay for our lunch with our watches and passers-by are now able to donate to buskers via contactless. This growth of new payment technologies is drawing us closer to a cashless society, but long standing preferences for cash remain in certain situations, particularly among older consumers.
“The shift to digital payments in the new economy raises important questions about the role of different payment methods, and highlights the need to balance the convenience people want with security. As digital and online payments continue to grow, so too does the associated fraud. It’s vital that new technology is maximised to give people the reassurance they need as they change the way they spend.”
(Source: Equifax)
Contactless and online banking have pulled cash out of the pockets of most people, and while there are those that believe cash will always be a vital part of the international economy, there are some parts of the world that are borderline cashless. Below Shane Leahy, CEO of Tola Mobile, elves into the possibilities of cashless countries around the world.
With more digital payment options now readily available to consumers than ever before, the depreciation in use of traditional forms of payment, such as bank notes and the humble coin, has been inevitable. When we would once delve into our pockets for some cash, consumers today are now increasingly reaching for their mobile devices to complete purchases quickly and conveniently.
The rise of mobile payments technology over the last few years has played a particularly huge hand in enabling both merchants and customers worldwide to facilitate more cashless transactions. With the global mobile payment transaction market forecast to reach US$2.89 trillion in revenue by 2020, the rapid uptake of mobile-centric methods and the resulting shift towards a more cashless consumer culture is showing no signs of slowing.
Yet, not only have these technologies made fast digital payments accessible for smartphone owners in the more technologically advanced areas of the world; it has also empowered consumers in many emerging markets around the world to undertake instant and secure payments through their mobiles, without the need for physical cash or a registered bank accounts. In fact, it is these same developing regions in which we are now seeing the most widespread and advanced adoptions of mobile payment solutions, which are rapidly eliminating cash as a dominant form of payment amongst consumers within these markets.
One particular area of the world in which cashless payments have broken down many of the previous barriers to entry for both merchants and consumers is Sub-Saharan Africa. It has been demonstrating a rapid mass-market adoption of mobile money services of late and has so far outstripped the rest of the world in terms of its approach to cashless payments. So much so that it now accounts for more than half of the total 277 mobile money deployments worldwide.
One of the biggest driving forces behind this development has been mPesa, the mobile phone based money transfer service which now boasts over 30 million subscribers across various African countries, including Kenya, Congo, Tanzania, Mozambique and Ghana. Unlike apps such as Paypal and NFC-based mobile enabled credit card methods like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay which have been gaining traction in Western regions, the sheer simplicity of the technology required to conduct cashless payments across Africa has contributed to its growing uptake of mobile money options.
In contrast to these methods, which require users to invest in a modern and more expensive smartphones to utilise the technology, mobile money transactions across Africa can be carried out using the most basic handset and without needing an internet or data connection. By leveraging a low-level service menu provided on every GSM phone, this technology is widely accessible and therefore able to support the region’s current technological infrastructure.
What’s more, services such as Apple Pay and Paypal still also require users to link a bank account in order to complete mobile payments, making these methods largely inaccessible for the millions of unbanked consumers in developing regions. These factors also have an impact on merchants as they will have to pay more to process transactions conducted through a linked bank account, than they would if it was made directly through a physical credit or debit card.
With this and the growing preference towards cashless payment methods globally combined, it is unsurprising that the rate at which Sub-Saharan Africa is adopting mobile money is much faster than that of any other region. At the end of 2016, there were over 500m registered mobile money accounts in the region alone, a figure which has undoubtedly now significantly increased.
The establishment of mobile money across Sub-Saharan Africa is now giving much of its previously unbanked population unprecedented levels of financial inclusion and freedom to make purchases anywhere, at any time, a move which has undoubtedly played a significant role in the growth of cashless transactions and gradual decline in other payment methods. What’s more, these services have significantly reduced the concerns over carrying physical cash for consumers within these countries and have replaced them with a simple and secure means for them to instantly access funds and pay for goods and services.
Not only has this rise in mobile money use facilitated an increase in consumer empowerment; it has also paved way for merchants who have previously combatted against the region’s developing infrastructure, in which periods of downtime and network outages cause huge disruption and can often lead to lost funds when payments are made via credit cards. By ensuring a seamless and instant digital transfer of funds from customers to the merchants, the appeal of cashless options has increased dramatically, providing merchants with more business continuity and offering these countries an opportunity to drive economic growth.
While there is still some way to go before cash is rendered expendable globally, there are various countries Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Kenya and Tanzania which are currently leading the way in terms of changing consumer behaviour and quickly adopting a cashless approach. For now, cash still remains king across most Western and other countries. However, as consumers continue to seek convenience and security, it is certain that we will see a growing shift towards digital payment methods and a continued demise of physical cash worldwide.
Despite a well-developed electronic payment infrastructure, cash remains a dominant payment instrument in Singapore with 58.7% of transaction volume made at POS terminals in 2017, according to leading data and analytics company GlobalData.
In addition, more than 75% of transactions made at hawkers and wet markets are carried out in cash. This can be primarily attributed to the limited acceptance of electronic payments among small-sized merchants such as street vendors, food stalls and hawkers due to the high cost associated with POS terminals.
Singapore has for a long time been at the forefront of the payments innovation. Acceleration of electronic payments in the country has been one of the key objectives of the government’s Smart Nation Vision and in this regard, the country has invested substantially in building long-term infrastructure for cashless payments. Overall, the POS terminal penetration (number of POS terminals per thousand inhabitants) in Singapore stands at 35, compared to its Asian peers: Australia (39), Hong Kong (22), Japan (18), China (21), Indonesia (4) and India (2). In Singapore, card-based payments accounted for 32.8% of total payment transaction volume in 2017, increasing from 24% in 2013.
Singapore has a very high concentration of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). According to the Department of Statistics, Singapore, there were 220,100 business enterprises in the country in 2017, with 99% of them being SMEs. To encourage adoption of electronic payments among SMEs in particular, the government along with other payment participants is increasingly considering QR-based payments as a viable alternative for cash.
Kartik Challa, Payments Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “The economic rationale for QR codes is stemmed from the difficulty banks had in persuading smaller merchants to begin accepting payment cards. The QR-code based payment acceptance eliminates the need for a significant expenditure, as merchants can now either display a printed QR code on their stall or download the merchant app on their mobile phones to accept electronic payments.”
In November 2017, the Singapore Payments Council announced the development of a common standard for Singapore Quick Response Code (SG QR) payments, designed to work across all schemes, e-wallets and banks. Unlike the existing NETS QR system, which focuses on domestic market, the new system will accept electronic payments through both domestic and international payments. The SG QR, developed by an industry taskforce co-led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Infocomm Media Development Authority, will be deployed throughout 2018. Furthermore, as part of the process, the existing NETS QR will also be integrated into the new system and will be replaced with SG QR at all merchant locations.
Singapore's banks have also agreed to update their mobile payment apps/wallets to support SG QR. To expand the scope for SG QR, the Association of Banks in Singapore agreed to bring in banking P2P service –PayNow under the purview of SG QR. All seven participating banks of PayNow service, Citibank Singapore, DBS Bank, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and United Overseas Bank – enable their customers to transfer funds via SG QR.
Challa concludes: “The SG QR system is an important milestone, and to win over merchants, payment solution providers need to support the large number of e-wallets, offer quick payment settlement process and pricing benefits. Similarly, incentivizing consumers is a key factor to pique consumers’ interest in the new payment system. With the SG QR making a good headway, cash payments in Singapore are likely to soon become passé. Once again Singapore is at the forefront of innovation in payments, and other markets in Asia and globally are likely to follow the suit.”
(Source: GlobalData)
Cashless payments and the plight of cash in society has been something of a subject over the past few years, but a conversation many aren’t having is that of financial exclusion; something that has happened in the past is likely set to happen again. Below Jack Ehlers, Director of Payments Partnerships at PPRO Group, delves into the details.
In 2016, according to a report just published by the European Central Bank (ECB), EU citizens made €123 billion worth of what the ECB calls ‘peer-to-peer’ cash payments. That’s just another way of describing the money grandparents tuck inside birthday cards, donations to charity, payments to street vendors and the hundreds of other small cash transactions people make all the time.
But even as cash remains central to the economy, cashless payment methods become more common with each year. The use of e-wallets such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay is predicted to double to more than 16 million users by 2020. Overwhelmingly, the rise of the cashless society is a good thing. It promises greater convenience, lower risk, and improvements in the state’s ability to clamp down on practices such as tax avoidance and money laundering.
But what about those micro-payments? And even more importantly, what happens to the estimated 40 million Europeans who are outside the banking mainstream? These are the EU’s most vulnerable citizens and they have little or no access to digital payment methods.
If we don’t plan properly, the transition to a largely cashless future could see the re-emergence of financial exclusion, which we thought had been vanquished. In Western societies. Ajay Banga, CEO of Mastercard, has talked of the danger that in the future we’ll see “islands” of the unbanked develop, in which those shut out of the now almost entirely digitised economy are left able to trade only with each other.
But are we really going cashless any time soon?
The ECB report quoted above, also found that cash is still used in almost 79% of transactions. So, do we really need to worry about what will happen when we finally ditch notes for digital payments? Yes and no.
Even though contact payments are on the rise, the demand for cash is also growing. A recent study found that the value of euro banknotes in circulation has increased by 4.9% over the last five years. Given the historically low rate of inflation over the past few years, this would seem to be largely due to a cultural preference for cash. Low interest rates could also be encouraging Europeans to spend rather than save. But whatever the reason, cash isn’t going away soon.
But that doesn’t mean we can relax. Some markets are already much closer to going cashless than the European average would suggest. In Sweden, consumers already pay for 80% of transactions using something other than cash. In the Netherlands, that figure is 55%, in Finland 46% and in Belgium 37% [1]. Today, Britons use digital payments in 60% of all transactions. By 2027, that number is expected to rise to 79%. Already, 33% of UK citizens rarely, if ever, use cash.
Unless we take this challenge seriously, we risk stumbling into a situation in which the majority in these countries use cash-free payments most of the time, even if they still use cash in minor transactions. In such cases, there is the danger of many shops and services no longer accepting cash, leaving those who still rely on it stuck in the economic slow lane.
For most people, cashless payments can offer easier and faster payments, greater security, and improved access to a wider range of goods and services. But to maximise the benefits and reduce the downside, including those for strong personal privacy, we need to start thinking now about how we can manage the transition in a way that minimises the risk of financial exclusion for already marginal groups in society.
Charities and mobile payments show the way
The rise of digital payments does not have to mean the growth of financial exclusion. It is possible to create an affordable payments-infrastructure for small traders, churches, and charity shops — and, even more importantly, for economically marginal consumers.
In the UK, charities are leading the way. After noticing that donations were tailing off, the NSPCC and Oxfam sent out one hundred volunteers with contactless point-of-sale devices, instead of charity collection tins. The rate of donations trebled. The success of the NSPCC trial shows that it is possible to roll out the supporting infrastructure for cashless payments even to individual charity collectors on the street.
But that’s only half the story. While charities and shops — even small independent retailers — may be able to afford and install point-of-sale systems to accept micro-payments, normal citizens cannot. Here, mobile payments may be the answer.
The example of the Kenyan M-Pesa, a system which allows payments to be made via SMS, shows that it is possible to create an accessible, widely available and used mobile payment system that does not rely on the consumer owning an expensive, latest-model smartphone. Already, 17.6 million Kenyans use M-Pesa to make payments of anything from $1 to almost $500 in a single transaction.
An inclusive cashless future—in which mobile e-wallets and other contactless forms of payment dominate—is possible. But it won’t happen by itself. As an industry and a society, we need to plan and work towards it: starting today. The stakes for many businesses and some of the most vulnerable people in our society couldn’t be higher.
Sources:
The use of cash by households in the euro area, Henk Esselink, November 2017, Lola Hernández, European Central Bank
FinTech: mobile wallet POS payment users in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2014 to 2020, by age group, Statista.com.
Close to 40 million EU citizens outside banking mainstream, 5 April 2016, World Savings and Retail Banking Institute
Insights into the future of cash, Speech given by Victoria Cleland, Chief Cashier and Director of Notes, Bank of England, 13 June 2017.
Why Europe still needs cash, 28 April 2017, Yves Mersch, European Central Bank.
Europe’s disappearing cash: Emptying the tills, 11 August 2016, The Economist
UK Payment Markets 2017, Payments UK.
The Global State of Financial Inclusion, 5 March 2015, Pymnts.com
A recent study from Forex Bonuses finds the countries among the 20 largest economies who are adapting quickest to using cashless systems like phones and contactless cards – revealing that Canada narrowly edges out Sweden for the top position.
The economies adopting the most cashless technology have been revealed in new research from global trading site Forex Bonuses.
Investigating twenty of the world’s most significant markets, the study looks into contactless card saturation, number of debit and credit cards issued per capita, usage of cashless methods, growth of these cashless payments, and the proportion of people who are aware of which mobile payment services are available. From these six metrics an overall ranking was calculated.
Cashless Economies
The top position has gone to Canada, who, while only having contactless functionality in 26% of their cards (compared to 41% in the UK and 56% in China) and the lowest number of debit cards per capita included in the research (0.7), were found to have over two credit cards per person, a figure only exceeded by their neighbours in the US, who had just under three.
Likewise, the majority of their payments were made using cashless means at 57% of transactions, outmatched only by 2% in both Sweden and France. The UK reached 52% on this scale, while China, despite the majority of cards being contactless, used cashless methods in only 10% of transactions. China were also the most educated on mobile payment services, with 77% of survey respondents claiming they were aware of the options available to them in this regard. In comparison, only 47% in the UK claimed the same.
(Source: Forex Bonuses)
Transactions made in cash are losing ground to digital payments, and governments around the world are considering the merits of losing paper currency for good. Bloomberg QuickTake Q&A explains the advantages and disadvantages of a world without cash.
Video by Henry Baker
