The age of cash – is it history?

Has carrying cash become a thing of the past? With the advent of credit cards, personal cheques, and electronic banking, society is moving ever further away from cash transactions. Plus, there have been a number of recent innovations that have decreased the amount of money we carry in our wallets, and the trend is likely to continue.

For example, Royal Bank of Scotland employees now use a new type of payment card that requires neither a pin number nor a personalized signature; it is, in effect, plastic cash. Also, PayPal has introduced a service that enables you to buy retail items – all from the comfort of your mobile

Cash: We’ve Come a Long Way Baby

In earlier economic times, people used bartering as a form of economics, with commodities being traded instead of cash. A commodity is a basic item used by almost anyone – in the past commodities were things like livestock and food. However, carrying these commodities around became a nuisance, as many items were difficult to store or were perishable.

Around the years of 5000 B.C. metal objects were introduced into the economy as forms of cash. Countries were soon minting their own series of coins and then assigning values to them. And since these coins were given a certain value, it became much easier to carry around these types of coins than carrying around your cow or horse.

It was not until 940 A.D. that paper money became commonly used in China. As a result of the introduction of paper money, commodity money evolved into representative money. This meant that what money itself was made of no longer had to be valuable, the way metal money had been in the past.

This new form of money was backed by a government promise to exchange it for a certain amount of gold or silver - or what became eventually known as the “gold standard”. Think of it this way, without the government behind it, the paper money in your wallet is worth little more than the paper in your copy machine.

The End of Cash – The Positive Side

Many bank experts argue that there are several advantages to no longer having cash:

	Security and piece of mind: sure, there are security issues with credit cards, but at least if you loose your credit card you’ll have it replaced – good luck getting that kind of service with cash! Incredible convenience: You’ll never have to worry about having cash on your person again – no more searching for bank machines or waiting in bank lines The cashless system is working in other countries: In the Netherlands and Hong Kong, where cash purchases are becoming more rare, you can use your cards anywhere – from transit to convenient stores, it’s all covered

So, open up your wallet or purse today and say a fond farewell to your cash – it may soon become a novel relic of the past.

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