(Roughly) Daily

“The king is dead, long live the king” Nick Routley on the replacement of cash by digital payment…

As credit cards and digital wallets (e.g. Apple Pay, Paytm, Alipay) see increasing adoption around the world, the share of cash being used in transactions is plummeting.

The chart above looks at cash as a share of transaction value in selected countries at three time periods (2019, 2023, and 2027P). Highlighted in red is cash’s projected drop from 2019 to 2027. This data showing the death of cash comes from WorldPay’s Global Payments Report 2024.

The prominence of cash for use in transactions is dropping in every country measured. This includes countries where cash was preferential method of payment in POS transactions.

One clear example is Nigeria. In 2019, over 90% of transaction value was still in cash payments. That number has now fallen to 55% today. Cash is still the leading payment method in Nigeria and a handful of other nations, but current trends indicate this may not be the case for much longer. For now, cash also remains the leading method of payment in various South American and East Asian countries…

All that is solid melts into air: “Charted: The Death of Cash Transactions Around the World,” from @NickRoutley in @VisualCap.

For more: “What is a cashless society, and what does it mean for businesses?“

And for a consideration of the pros and cons: “Should We Become a Cashless Society?“

Also apposite: “Target said that due to ‘extremely low volumes,’ it would no longer take personal checks.”

* Modern saying, summarizing the position in a recession

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As we click, we might recall that it was on this date in 2001 THAT The Code Red worm was released onto the Internet. Targeting Microsoft’s IIS web server, Code Red had a significant effect on the Internet via the speed and efficiency of its spread.  Much of this was due to the fact that IIS was often enabled by default on many installations of Windows NT and Windows 2000. But Code Red also affected many other systems with web servers, mostly by way of side-effect, exacerbating the overall impact of the worm.