The future of money in a cashless economy
Physical currency seems inevitably on the path to extinction as digital payments and crypto currencies rise. But what exactly do we expect from "money"?
Listen to the proponents of cryptocurrencies and digital banking and it won’t be long before notes and coins are as quaint as cowrie shells as a means of value exchange.
But listen to the sceptics and the shift to shut down physical money risks leaving us stranded with no way to pay for anything or in the hands of opaque private companies. They fret over decisions like the Australian government’s phasing out of cheques by 2030 or Macquarie Bank’s decision to halt physical cash transactions even sooner.
Meanwhile the Reserve Bank of Australia, which is in charge of physical currency, has just completed a series of pilots of its own digital dollar.
It seems we are on the point of a seismic shift in the nature of money. But it’s important to bear in mind our idea of “money” is both quite modern and typically quite limited.
