While payments by bank card progress rapidly to the detriment of cash, Marc Schwartz, the boss of the Monnaie de Paris recalls all the advantages of coins and banknotes in a note published by Terra Nova.
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Is preserving the possibility of paying in cash, in a digitized world, a guarantee of freedom? Readers of Margaret Atwood will recall that in her dystopia The Handmaid Scarlet, the author had created in 1985 a totalitarian society where cash no longer existed: dematerialized money, which had become a means of control, had been confiscated from women. /
A few decades later, as digital payment methods continue to gain ground at the expense of cash, Monnaie de Paris CEO Marc Schwartz is sounding the alarm, in a note, ” The great paradox – or why the reign of cash is far from over, “published Friday, January 8 by the think tank Terra Nova.
Within the euro zone, the use of bank cards has increased by five points between 2016 and 2019, from 19% to 24% (41% in value). Since then, the possible transmission of the coronavirus via coins and banknotes has accelerated the tide. “Over a twenty-year horizon, the use of cash will be really very limited,” David Marcus, the co-founder of libra, the digital currency project launched by Facebook, told Le Monde on June 7, 2020. “A cashless society seems attractive. A modern idea, symbolizing real technological progress, it is in tune with the times,” admits Marc Schwartz, “fueled by campaigns cleverly orchestrated by economic players finding their interest in it”.
However, cash has serious advantages, according to the boss of the coin maker. It makes it possible to settle a transaction anonymously and protect individual data, while “card or online payments leave behind a payment history accessible by private or public institutions”, underlines the report. A tracking that the Pixpay neobank is already offering to parents of teenagers, to allow them to block their purchases in businesses deemed unsuitable.
Cash is also the only completely free means of payment that individuals can use to instantly pay their expenses, the report points out. Bank cards or payment apps, on the other hand, come at a cost.
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