I've been thinking about how things are in my area lately. Not sure if it’s the same everywhere else, but here, cash payments are really fading out. I find myself using digital payments more often now, like just scanning a QR code or whatever. It feels like most people are doing the same these days.
A few years back, cash was the go-to for a lot of folks. People would carry cash all the time instead of using apps or digital wallets. Now, it’s like a complete flip. With everything changing, it looks like digital currency is gonna be the norm soon. Even stablecoins are likely to get more traction, and CBDCs might not be far behind since everyone’s getting used to these digital methods.
I also came across some news about a US law passed on July 18, 2025, regarding stablecoins called GENIUS (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act of 2025). And I heard the UK is working on something similar too.
Does this hint that more countries will jump on board? I know places like El Salvador, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia have started using stablecoins as well. Not too familiar with the specifics, but it seems like the digital payment wave is hitting hard. I'm really wondering if cash will even be a thing in the future.
What are your thoughts? Are digital payments taking over where you live too?
Cashless economy is being encouraged and adapted in most part of the world, digital payment is now taking over the global payment system, and the reason for that is because of the advantages that come with digital/bank transfers payments such as.
1: banks payment/digital payments reduce the risk of carrying cash around most especially for that perform large transactions.
2: the government can easily tax your payments modt especially those done via bank transfers
3: digital payment give room for financial inclusion much more that fait payment system.
The one other important of digital payment is that it eliminate the problem of change, in the past when payment are made in fiat the problem giving change in another lesser denomination have always arise but with bank payment all that is put to rest.
You're right, we are in the same country... Indonesia.
Now that many people are switching payments to digital instead of cash it may be more flexible and simple to pay for something using QRIS just by scanning.
Even in my area some small stalls have now accepted this digital payment more easily so now rarely hold cash for any payment.
As such, cash payments still exist, but the majority of people now encourage simpler digital payments.
Both the cash payment and the digital payment have their own role to play in terms of making payment irrespective of the other, the cash payment is actually good to some extent, because like in our community local market, there are a lot of people who don't give much trust to digital payments due to lack of knowledge on them, but they do prefer physical cash payments over digital payments. However, digital payments have many advantages over cash payments, because this payment method is convenient, so the transactions are moving from one place to another quickly and easily around the world. This digital method also reduces the risk of enemy attacks by carrying cash around, so it serves as security by minimising the risks of losses that are associated with physical cash payments.
Additionally, digital payments are also a good record keeper of all the transactions you made, as such, the digital payment is more preferable and more dominant than cash payments.
Cash payment is just for little items like short distance transportation, buying grocery items in mini stores and for other lite transactions. Beside these, every other thing is digital payment although through fiat. There is cashless policy in my country and it limits the amount an individual can withdraw as cash per day and per week. SO most transactions are done electronically.
I don't remember the last time I used physical cash in anything other than paying for something like a taxi (and even that can be paid using your smart phone nowadays). Everything else have been through various digital payment methods for many years now.
They'll most probably become heavily regulated and that would bring about a lot of restrictions and censorship/surveillance to the crypto world.
However, I'm still excited to see more CBDCs because they are good replacement for existing stablecoins that are shady and risky. Even though both are centralized but something issued by a central bank is more reliable than something issued by some random company.
[2022-04-14] Are we entering the era of CBDCs?
As much as we are in the digital age and our country somewhat is in the middle of adopting Bitcoin with so many bills on the line, and we have Gcash/Paymaya apps, I think we're really going digital payments already.
Even small stores here are universally accepting digital payments, although I think it might still take some time before it might push to 50%-60% that we are going digital. Adn there are still a lot of banking ATM's so maybe in the next 10-20 then we could go full blown digital.
With the growth of the internet and the popularity of technology and smartphones, it is clear that digital payments are becoming more popular and starting to dominate. I think this is happening globally, it's no longer a pilot project, but I don't think cash is going away anytime soon. Because there is still a large part of the world's population that still has difficulty using the internet and smartphones. It may take another decade or two before we see a completely cashless world.
But honestly, I'm not entirely happy with that because cash actually offers better privacy.
I live in a small town and cash payments still dominate my area. There won't be any change about this anytime soon.
The biggest reason for this is the fact that the vast majority of the people where I live are old. Elderly people still prefer cash and this is totally normal. I don't believe that stablecoins would ever be accepted for everyday purchases in the country where I live. Maybe the upcoming digital euro would be pushed as the most popular currency for digital payments, but I'm not sure if the digital euro qualifies as a CBDC.
A cashless society has it's pros and cons, but I don't think that the area where I live would ever fully embrace cashless payments.
Honestly we're gradually running into cashless system where payments are processed and accepted electronically. The digital monetary system is really going astonished considering the adoption rates.
I believe this will grow more in advance where every advanced countries will behold adopt the concept of digital and stable currency.
In my locality.
I've also seen lot of less educated people using mobiles to make payments which impression tend to convince me that with time, cash maybe something of history and lot of monetary institutions like the banks may likely be shutdown while promoting the digital version.
It's not just in your country. Here too, we prefer to deal more with digital payment than carrying cash around. It's just on a growing scale. There are places where you can even go to make a purchase, and they will tell you they don't accept cash payment. The growing demand for such could be for security reasons and how easy it has become to make payment without delay of counting to confirm it money is complete or if the currency is counterfeit.
One reason why digital payments are getting popularity in my country (Pakistan) is because due to inflation prices are gone so high that it's not easy to carry huge cash every time you go for monthly grocery or take family for dinner at restaurant. Majority of merchants here are accepting digital payments because people prefer digital payments over cash. It's good for businesses to accept the change and adopt themselves accordingly otherwise one wont' be able to save his business. If a merchant is not accepting digital payments then people won't prefer to go to him.
I think that there are still a lot of areas where cash is king and that's why merchants prefer the payments in form of cash than digital payments. For example in Japan, it's a country that's still have that dominant payments in cash than of digital. And not just them but also other Asian neighboring countries.
As technology advances, the government is encouraging people to go cashless. The high cost of producing and managing paper money is one of the reasons why the government is promoting cashless policies. Even in rural areas, small businesses are accepting online payments. Any business that has no option for cashless transactions might not have many customers.
Some of these stablecoins are issued by centralised institutions that claim that they are backed by unconfirmed reserve assets. Some of them have refused to subject their accounts to an independent audit by reputable financial institutions. The Central Bank is more trustworthy than these firms that issue stablecoins. CBDCs might not be perfect, but they're a better alternative to stablecoins.
The old generations are not yet familiar enough with the cashless payment system. They're also still dominating the majority of population who are lack of knowledge about the tech. It's mostly come from the asian countries. However, i see some huge growth in the QR payment system.
I believe when we're shifting from the old generation to the new one, it will also trigger to growth of cashless payment system.
Digital payments already dominate in my area. Government already control cash turnover with ATM withdrawal/deposit limits, trades above certain amount can be made only cashless and declared, but some purchases above certain amount can be made only if you provide ID. There is a must to give receipt for any trade, and that makes cash purchases slow (individual entrepreneurs prefer cash payment and write receipt by hand). If you do only cash payments and have little digital payments (in short, you dont use your card often or at all, as well as the bank transactions), tax authorities ask you for explanation of your funds origins, and why you pay in cash.
The digital payments became rampant and more preferred during the height of the pandemic. Contactless payments systems are what people prefer to avoid contain the virus from the other people. But when the pandemic has loosened and everything came back to normal, the countries and its governments that have preferred the cash/fiat system have come back and became lively again. In my place, it's the same that businessmen and establishments here are very flexible, but not all have adopted to go cashless.
It's mostly card payments here, but cash is still greatly appreciated. There's a lot of tax evasion around here, so cash is still king. I'm curious how they will completely abolish it in my country, as the EU has announced they'll release their CBDC sometime within the next two years, and I'm sure our puppet state will adopt it.
The reason they promote cashless policies is that cash is difficult to track, and governments have always been interested in monitoring their citizens. There's just no other reason. Your government is just less powerful with cash around.
Digital payments are indeed one of the options that are chosen by most people because it is easy to do, but I myself cannot compare which is more dominant between these two because when I think about it, it seems that both are running well, there are those who do digital payments and there are cash payments, besides that cash payments are a traditional method that seems like it will not be eliminated because there are several fields or small shops that do not provide digital payment options.
Cash and digital method of paying for goods and services still very much depend on what a person does for a living and how they make their money, those who are into digital means of making money and get paid digitally prefer to make payment for their goods and services digitally because that can't go lining up in the bank to withdraw cash or possibly spend hefty money on POS to get cash..
Meanwhile those who are working, running a business and getting paid offline or in cash prefer to pay in cash when they patronize other business and services..
Now, between this two categories of people, I don't know and can't say which outnumber the other, but one thing I am 100% sure of is the fact that business, services that previously won't accept digital payment method here in my area all now have started accepting both digital and cash payment method.