Advantages and Disadvantages of Cashless Economy

Cashless is a word which literally means having no cash but in today’s world, it refers to using digital form of payments instead of cash for payment of various expenses or transactions done by the individual. In order to understand this term better let’s look at advantages and disadvantages of cashless economy –

Advantages of Cashless Economy

1. The first and foremost advantage of cashless economy is that an individual does not need to carry cash with him or her everywhere which in turn reduces the chances of theft from wallet, reduces inconvenience due to carrying cash, give freedom from problem of change when transaction is of odd amount, no risk of receiving counterfeit currency and so on.
2. Another benefit of cashless economy is that it is easier to track the black money and illegal transactions because if cash is used directly for doing transactions than it is not easy to track the transactions as the money does not come into the banking system however in case of digital transactions it is easy to track the transaction as all records are there with the banks which result in more transparent transactions which in turn leads to fall in corruption in the economy of the country.
3. Another advantage of cashless economy is that since all transactions will be done through organized channel that is through banks and financial institutions it results in increase in tax revenue for the government as all cash transactions which were done illegally come into banking system which in turn helps the government in tracking all transactions and levying tax on them which in turn can be used by the government for betterment of economy of the country.

Disadvantages of Cashless Economy

1. The biggest disadvantage of the cashless economy is that not everybody has the knowledge of doing digital transactions and hence its reach is limited to urban and semi-urban centers only and therefore it is very difficult to implement cashless economy in the big country where many sections of the society in rural areas is illiterate and poor. Hence the lack of proper infrastructure and education among citizens is disadvantageous as far as the cashless economy is concerned.
2. Another disadvantage of the cashless economy is that although it easy to do digital transactions but at the same time it is very risky as compared to cash related transactions. Hence people having half knowledge of digital payments are exposed to cyber fraud and losing their hard earned money to online scam and hacking of bank accounts and hence it is better to do cash transactions rather than doing digital transactions if one is not fully aware of the online medium of transactions.
3. Another demerit of the cashless economy is that digital mode of payments like the credit card, wallet payments, internet banking involves some transactions fee which is not the case with cash transactions and hence any individual thinking of doing online transactions will take into account these transaction costs and will not favor online medium of transactions. Hence the presence of transaction cost is a hindrance to cashless economy finding acceptance among the people of the country.

As one can see from the above that cashless economy has advantages as well as disadvantages and any government thinking of adopting cashless economy model should carefully analyze the merits and demerits and then take the decision as the cashless economy cannot be imposed on the people rather it can be gradually adopted by the people of the country.