Most people love the feel of crisp paper money in between their fingers and the particular smell of new money that comes along with it, right? Well that is true for countries that still continue to encourage the use of money in paper form. On the bigger world scene, a significant part of the world is going cashless and in the near foreseeable future physical money in form of coins or paper notes could be a thing of the past, to be displayed and seen only in museums! Some nations have embraced the cashless concept so well that even those people selling things off the street like simple eatables or cups of tea can accept mobile money from their clients or customers. In Denmark for example, you can pay for almost everything including rent for your house or office by just a click of the phone button. In Africa, surprisingly, Somalians takes up a prominent position in making cashless transactions preferring to pay bills, school fees and even for a meal or drink at a restaurant by card or digital money! Of course with such innovations come two sides to them. One drawback is the fact that a slight mistake while entering figures can lead to an irreversible loss of loads of digital cash – something that can be managed more easily when a person is transacting face to face with another person. In most parts of Africa, a few people have full time access to these digital services where mobile money can be accessed. Also the majority of the intended users of such services are not conversant with their use – imagine some one from deep in the village having to buy seeds There are numerous new innovations every day in a bid to get people on board the train to a cashless economy. Countries like India are planning to use Watsup as platform where digital money can be transferred from one Watsup user to another. On the contrary, countries like German are not very enthusiastic about not using the physical cash. They have a point – there is something about touching paper or feeling a shiny coin that gives you an immense sense of satisfaction that a message on a screen that says, ‘ You have received this amount of Rwandan francs’ does not quite give you. But again that is up to each individual. Some will argue that whichever medium is used does not matter as long as they can transact using the cash; that the end justifies the means; so to speak.
