Social distancing and “stay home” protocols resulted in fewer cash transactions last year and greater reliance on the internet.
In a survey of 21 countries, MoneyTransfers.com found that Canada rank 11th; 32 per cent of Canadians would welcome transitioning to just electronic payments.
Last year 49 per cent of Canadians paid in cash less often since the Covid-19 outbreak. There were 1,009 Canadians surveyed for MoneyTransfers.com .
India is the country most in favour of a cashless society as 79 per cent of Indians believe going cashless would have a positive impact on their country.
Only 24 of Americans think going entirely cash free would be a good thing for their country.
The benefits of going cashless are:
It’s good for the environment – fewer resources are wasted on money production.
Cash-free payments are significantly quicker, more convenient, and require no in-person contacts.
It’s easy to keep on top of your money and track any problems or missing money.
It can boost your credit score, which is needed to qualify for loans and mortgages.
Crime will be reduced – cash is untraceable, so plays the main role in crime, less cash would result in a decline in robberies.
It’s cheaper for countries – cash infrastructure costs a lot to run (in Britain, it’s somewhere around £5 billion a year).
The drawbacks include:
Less interaction among people.
Digital finance is susceptible to technology failures and cyber-attacks/
t’s threatening stores because of an increase in online shopping.
It can be harder to budget – it’s easy to spend and exceed your limit when making cashless transactions and become less aware of your daily outgoings.
As it’s so much easier to spend, it can encourage bad spending habits.
One thing MoneyTransfers.com did not say is that governments like a cashless society because tax revenues increase because under-the-table deals are no longer secret.
