Most folk consider the smartphone to be very important in their lives. To some it seems like the only thing in their lives. To be fair, smartphones are useful and whether you like them or not, have become an almost irreplaceable part of our lives. But I wonder how many consider the possible negatives of owning a smartphone?
Ask bankers in most countries and they'll tell you that paper currency is on the way out. And, with the rise in popularity of alternative payment methods, such as Visa Checkout, Apple Pay, Paypal, BPay, Google Pay (and many more), it seems that the humble paper currency's days are certainly numbered. I think that will be a sad day.
Personally I distrust and dislike the idea of paying for everything by waving a smartphone over a generic point of sale 'reader'. It's probably more hygienic, younger people might consider it 'normal', especially if they have known nothing else, but I feel that it's still a very detached and impersonal substitute for the traditional exchange of crisp paper or even plastic notes. A while back I read that Sweden had tried to remove cash completely as a legal currency. But then its government had had to reverse that decision because many in its population couldn't cope in an all-digital environment. Perhaps they didn't own a smartphone, or had no bank account, or maybe they didn't trust the electronic process (as many don't), or were migrants from a society where cash is normal and everything electronic is regarded with deep suspicion - and thus open to interference by governments and 'big business'.
I also read somewhere recently that banks (in Australia) are grumbling about having to continue bearing the cost of keeping bank notes in circulation. I get that. Notes don't last forever and need to be replaced. Notes are also bulky compared to the ones and zeros buzzing around in an EFTPOS terminal. Plus notes create their own security issues because of their physical properties. It's not surprising then that electronic cash handling seems to be the perfect alternative. However, I suspect that more money is stolen via online fraud and scams than from a bunch of sweaty bank robbers raiding the local bank with stockings over their heads.
I tried to find figures that support this. In 2023, Australians lost 2.7 billion dollars to online scams. 2.7 billion! And that's just what's been reported. It doesn't include all forms of online fraud - but you get the idea. A staggering amount of money is lost electronically every year - which I think makes the case for continuing with cash a strong one. And let's not forget the occasions when your telco fails and all those ever so convenient electronic pay points stop working. Optus anyone? That memorable blackout (November 2023) was just for 10 hours, if I recall correctly, but it still did untold harm to thousands of small businesses who no longer handled cash. Surely continuing to offer both methods of payment makes sense?
One reason I like paper money is for its (often) beautiful designs - some national bank notes are a real work of art. Notes often celebrate the history, the achievements, national personalities and the inevitable leaders of the country issuing the currency. Of course, some of that history can seen as little more than mysogynistic or imperialist twaddle, often reminding you of who's the boss (inevitably men), but many are still beautifully created works of art. If notes are ever to be withdrawn entirely in favour of an electronic pay system, we'll lose all that visual creativity. Notes have been with us for more than a thousand years, it'd be a tremendous shame to never see new notes being released. Worth thinking about perhaps.
Easy Accounting
Interestingly quite a few folk prefer to use cash in their day-to-day transactions rather than credit or debit cards - for the very sensible reason that keeping your money in cash is a reliable way to monitor your day-to-day finances. Though the concept of employing cash as a way to control spending might be little more than a news filler, it's still an effective way to keep an eye on what's coming in and what's going out. If you don't have cash in your wallet, you can't spend it, and therefore you are less likely to get into debt. Using plastic is so easy, so is spending too much.
Show who's the Boss
Paper money has always been a way for autocratic rulers to keep their population mindful of exactly who's in charge, and who isn't. I could go on but by having images of some of the most questionable leaders in history on your national currency is surely sending the population a clear message. The People's Republic of China is one obvious example but you could also apply this to notes from Syria (Bashar al-Assad), North Korea (Kim Il Sung), Libya (Muammar Qaddaffi), Iraq (Saddam Hussein), and Turkmenistan (Saparmurat Niyazov), just to name a few power hungry, stop-at-nothing autocrats. Hindsight is always an easy way to line up the obvious but there are some countries that relish the placement of despots on their currency while there are countries that prefer to forget - the Federal Republic of Germany is one example.
War changes the rules
What do you do about money when you invade another country? To save resources it makes sense to use its current currency, or to overprint your own identification marks on the existing paper notes. Here's a good example of a country (Japan) that had decided it was there for the duration (in this example Malaya). Japan occupied Malaya between 1941 and 1945 and so these 'banana notes' were commonly available.
Another factor that journalists often miss when writing about the pros and cons of cash and electronic currencies is the impact of losing paper currency might have on those people that earn a living from collecting, trading, selling and exhibiting paper money. For some, like myself, collecting a few banknotes from here and there is nothing more than an amateur hobby, but there are tens of thousands of serious collectors around the world that rely on the continuing preservation of existing notes (and coins) as well as the release of new notes which might, over time, become valuable assets. Certainly if cash is really removed from circulation, existing paper notes will always remain a collectable item - they might also increase in value once the printing of new notes ceases. But that's the thing. Once it stops, it stops forever. It's the end of a designing/printing/collecting/trading, tradition that spans centuries.
Not all new technology is as perfect as the marketing professionals would have you believe.
I got a bit carried away when preparing for this short blog, photographing and processing pictures of bank notes with Photoshop Elements. Everything went swimmingly well until I tried to edit a photo of a Cuban banknote - it wouldn't let me, blocking the process with this panel (above).
Apparently Adobe software contains anti-copying technology - something I'd never encountered in the 20 years I have been using photo editing software - this technology is designed to identify a banknote and then prevent its editing or printing. Apparently there are workarounds to this restriction that you can find online. It seems a bit superfluous because, in my case, it only blocked one image out of more than 20 that I edited with no restriction at all.
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