A new study by the Bank of America suggests we could be looking at a cash-free future.
Most people surveyed said they don’t think children who are ten years old today will be using physical currency, including cash, plastic, credit cards, once they reach adulthood. 71% say they don’t think these kids will even know how to write a check, and Rice University’s Dr. Russell Green, the Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, won’t have a problem with that. “I think it would be wonderful if nobody had to write checks anymore,” he tells KTRH News. “Certainly technology is improving our ability to go cashless.”
But Dr. Green doesn’t think realistically it’s likely to happen. No matter where the modern world of technology takes us, he says there will always be those in society who will exist in a cash-based world. “I think we are unlikely to see the end of cash in our lifetime. The informal economy folks who have very bad credit ratings, are remarkably un-banked in America,” Dr. Green says. He thinks that is so deeply engrained in some cultures it won’t change in the foreseeable future, but points to Sweden, where cash is only involved in 3% of financial transactions, as a goalpost.