Merits and Demerits of Cashless Economy

N 8th November 2016, our honourable prime minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi made an announcement that the 500 and 1000 rupee notes would be banned. With this announcement, 86% of currency notes in India were just mere pieces of paper. The main objective was to curb black money and eliminate the circulation of fake currency in the Indian economy. India is a cash-centric economy where less than 5% of all transactions happen by money. But with demonetization there resulted in a currency crunch and many people started making online payments. Thus Demonetization took an unprecedented turn of trying to make India move towards a cashless economy. Cashless transaction means using debit, credit cards, internet banking, e-wallets for making payments instead of paying in hard cash. The cashless economy has its own pros and cons.

Merits of cashless economy:

People to boost their customer base even in far of geographic locations and hence will result in enhanced business.

The real estate prices will come down because of the curb on black money, as most of the black money is invested in Real estates.

Electronic payments will improve transparency and accountability. Most of the cashless societies are corrupt-free as all the transactions are being traced, are visible and are transparent.

Making online payments are handy and it will lead to slim wallets as people need not carry cash.

Majority of election funding is done through Black money. Cashless transactions will make it impossible for political parties to spend thousands of crores of unaccounted money on elections. Buying votes by giving cash will also come to an end. True democracy will come into the picture.

Amount of tax collected will also increase, and it can be spent for the betterment of poor and underprivileged people.

Generation of counterfeit currency will be reduced and hence terrorism can be prevented.

It will reduce pickpocketing and robbery of cash in crowded locations.

Through online payment, one can view the history of their expenses and plan their budget in a smart way.

Printing costs of notes and maintenance itself is accounting to 27 billion; this can be removed by electronic payments as there would be no need of paper currency.

De-merits of Cashless economy:.

Many of the rural people and even some urbanites still do not have a functional bank account in order to make online payments.

A majority of India's population is in rural locations, and there are no proper internet facilities available to make online payments.

People in rural areas are not educated about the digital mode of payments.

There are still some places which take cash and do not accept cards. Making a purchase at such locations with card becomes difficult. Small retailers in India still deal only in cash as they cannot afford to invest in digital infrastructure.

Cash is not under your control, you will try to spend excessively.

If you lose your debit/credit card, it takes some time to get a new one.

Hacking and cyber theft are challenging problems which can be caused by online transactions. Cyber Security measures have to be brought in place to prevent money from going into wrong hands.

Even in big cities, sometimes online transactions cannot be made because of poor internet facilities.

In a country like India where cash is more pervasive, it requires some time for India to take a transition towards Cashless economy. Meanwhile, the government of India has to address many challenges to meet the objectives of the cashless economy. The government has to provide internet facilities and financial literacy to all its people. While a cashless economy is still not here, the move towards less cash economy is on the move.

Every innovation will have some merits and demerits but since we as humans can live together in a trust-based society, the merits of most innovations outweigh the demerits.

The merits are:.

A) Independence from physical currency:- It gives us the freedom to transact any required amount without the risk and hastle of carrying physical currency.

B) Ease of access:- With rapid rise in technology penetration, cashless transactions are being used by the smallest of vendors to seamlessly transact without any barriers. This technology has proven so easy that even remotest villages have people transacting cashless-ly.

C) Lesser corruption:- With each transaction being digitally recorded and stored, the scope for corruption using cash is reduced hugely. Each transaction is accounted for. Making huge transactions in govt businesses cashless mandatory will remove the scope of corruption.

D) Advanced concepts of crypto-currencies, digital currency and decentralized currencies are the future of our society which allow free markets to exist without govt intervention and single-party manipulation.

Conversely, the following demerits emerge :-.

A) Dependence on technology:- Completely shifting to cashless will make all of us more and more dependent on technology and this at the mercy of the people who control this technology.

B) Lesser privacy:- Since every transaction is being recorded, we also give away our private information such as location, devices used, our choices, etc which takes away our privacy and makes it easier to track our activities. This can be used in malicious ways if someone wants to.

C) Technological illiteracy:- Given the vast population of India, there are a huge number of people who simply do not have access to any technology and are illiterate in that aspect. Making everything cashless will cut off the services to millions of people. Older people become more and more dependent on the younger generation to learn and use this technology.

D) Cyber threats:- Rise in technology also has brought about a rise in cyber threats. Naive people, especially old people, often fall into traps of phishing, scams and extortion because of their limited knowledge of technology. Even major banks face cyber threats from hostile parties trying to damage the country. So cyber threats are a serious demerit of a cashless economy.

Given the above merits and demerits, I believe many of the demerits can be solved by working together to build a trust-based society and technology. If we can create trust between the entities providing the technology and the end users to not misuse each other's situation, then we can steadily build a reliable system of a cashless economy. In general, with a little increased awareness of technology and related threats, most cyber threats can be tackled. Thus, I believe that the merits of a cashless economy is more than the demerits.

India is the second-largest smartphone market, would benefit a lot from going cashless. Every year India's smartphone penetration grows exponentially. India's biggest problem it's corruption will be greatly addressed. Using online transaction means there will be a online receipt of a transaction which cannot be removed from the company's server or either of the people.

- A successful example of the digital economy would be Africa in which 92% of the economy is cashless. People have to create a mpesa account which can be accessed through SMS service and money can be transferred through the same way.

- Another example is Sweden in the the entire economy is cashless. In addition to being corruption free, the country has also low crime rates in terms of snatching and stabbing during robbery.

- Bringing the economy to a digital platform will make it easier to trace back black money or laundering cases.

- This vision is in effect in India. The government launched a program in 2015 DIGITAL INDIA with a similar objective.

1. Curbing the issue of black money.
2. Digitizing government services.
3. Digital literacy to the masses.

- Cashless economy means no standing in queues,

Accessing government services, reduce the hassle of paperwork.

- Digital literacy may be the biggest plus point as education means empowerment and people are empowered the country's progress.

- A similar trend picked up the pace from the last 2year which was BITCOIN, a cryptocurrency, decentralized network of payment with its own form of money which each transaction is recorded in every user so that the receipt of that transaction is never erased.

- In addition to being advantageous economically, technology-wise it will be fruitful as developing the platform will need engineers and it's maintenance too, so technological advancements will take place.

- As the transaction can be traced back it will a great help legally.

- Environmentally it will be good as our paper dependency will be greatly reduced.

Demerits:

1. The people in rural will have to be trained to deal with the online platform.

2. The biggest threat will be CYBERSECURITY. Keeping the network afloat means there should be no downtime in the servers and cyber threats will have to carefully monitored and scrutinized.

Hackings, viruses will have to be controlled.

India last year had about 30million cybersecurity threats. If the cashless economy continues by 2025 India will need about 10 million cybersecurity professional which would deal in building the network, maintaining it, averting viruses, hackings, back door entries, etc.

But in conclusion, a cashless economy will benefit a lot creating more jobs better jobs, literacy rate will be increased, government services will take a shorter time, corruption will take toll for the good and India dream of a 5 trillion economy will be fulfilled.

Hi Everyone!

We have a great topic to debate "Merits and Demerits of Cashless Economy".

Well I strongly support cashless Indian economy knowing that a large no. Of people are against of it and they're right and they have the valid points too like in India where 6.7% population is below poverty than how can they afford smartphones and net recharge; India where 26% people are not educated then how can they use the online platform, India where only 55% population is using the internet; Cybersecurity risk is also high, most of the literate population also don't know the cyber threats and many more still I'm supporting this campaign because this is not the single-day campaign. Government is not converting a cash-based economy to cashless economy in one day. It will take months and years so just relax but Yes now India is not ready to go for complete cashless Economy.

Now let's understand the Merits and Demerits.

Demerits:
1: This campaign will be successful only when the literacy rate is 100% but in India only 74% are educated.
2: People must be able to afford smartphones as well as net recharge and Talktime too where in India 7% population is below poverty.
3: A huge money will be spent to make people aware, educated and making them above poverty.
4: Its Demerits for those who are conventional or orthodox or resist to change.

Merits:

1: It will save time and money in today's world time is more important than money.
2: There will be transparency in the transactions so better will be the monitoring.
3: No need to stand in a long queue for the bill payments or tickets booking etc.
4: Better control over the black money, hawala transactions, smuggling, crimes and money laundering.
5: Will help in economic development.
6: It will rein over the corruption which is the root of black money.
7: People can carry a huge amount of money without any fear.
8: No need to carry chiller or coins.
9: Any amount can be transferred from one place to another within seconds.
10: Through online payments, we can track our expenses and can control our expenses and we can also download our bank statement.

So basically there are thousands of the benefits of Cashless Economy.

Thank you so much for devoting your time to read it.

We have lots of merits which we can't deny, just because of a cashless economy we are able to do any kind of transaction to anywhere on fingertips. People even wouldn't think that instead of making a long line of the queue in the bank for long hours they will do this kind of thing from where they are and in a very easy way which helps to save our energy as well as time which is very important these days.

So what should we have to do these kinds of transaction firstly everyone should their own ATM card, or debit card so that we can easily transfer money through google pay, phone pe, paytm aap directly to any other account if we have good internet connection as we are the user we all know how much it is useful if we have just phone in my pocket it means we have everything like we can buy any product pay to anyone whosever we need to pay. We can also do card payment directly through debit or credit cards.

So it is a good initiative taken by the government, if we have all the availability then it is one of the ways to make India digital as well as cashless. In fact, in this ways we have all the records of every transaction so there may be no chance of black money we if using this mode of transaction.

And it would only happen if we have all the facilities and awareness but due to lack of proper awareness people are not using this facility in rural areas and they don't know how to use it first it would happen if everyone has a smartphone and proper internet connection government need to focus on this matter at ground level too because those who are not educated they face difficulties even fraud people easily make them fool too so government Should aware and tell them about every aspect as it easily transferable anyone embezzle them from within a sec without of their knowing.

There are lots of fraud people sitting everywhere to make them fool through fake phone call and they take all the details and but nowadays they just send one OTP and take that otp via call and money easily credited to that fraud's account, and we can't do anything.

So it is totally up to ourselves how to keep alert and spread awareness about each pros and cons of cashless economy before using it.

Hello Everyone!

Today's topic is "Merits and Demerits of Cashless Economy".

So, to start with I want to explain what a cashless economy actually is. We are all aware of the UPI, mpockets, net banking, credit and debit cards and most recently the crypto-currencies. What all these actually do is nothing but give you the liberty to not carry your purse full of cash but then also being able to transfer or transaction of money in things.

I will be giving the possible merits that of course most of us are already experiencing are,

1. It is possible that you have money in your bank account but are out of cash now, this is the time when being cashless pays off.

2. If you were paying through cash then you need to pay that money to a physical person or place and for that, you might need to go somewhere else to pay that money, whereas only a device having active internet connection will save you for the day and you can get the works done from home itself.

3. You want to buy something expensive, handling that much cash may be proved to be really a hazard, while just a single swipe of your credit or debit card will be more than enough.

So,

Secure, easy, faster and authorization these are the fields where the cashless economy have its merits.

But, as there is a saying every coin has two sides one of it is good and the other bad, so, Cashless Economy is also no exception.

Possible demerits are,

1. You should be more alert while using digital currencies, if one's personal account details are known to someone else then they can easily hack through that account.

2. Sometimes the transactions are wrongly made due to the lesser speed of concerned internet connection, though we get the refund it causes a problem initially.

3. Till now the cashless economy hasn't been broadening for all the citizen of our country as an integral part of them are still finding it difficult to meet their both ends.

Finally, I want to conclude by saying that the merits of the Cashless Economy are obviously broader than the demerits it has which can be avoided with proper care while using. I personally am using it for quite a few years and obviously, it made my life simpler.

Thank You.

Cashless economy is one of the recent reforms undertaken by the government of India. Nevertheless, as every coin has two sides, even this also has its own merits and demerits.

First of all, I would like to discuss the merits of cashless economy.

1. It was a commendable initiative by the government to curb private illegal transactions of black money via cash and rather make the system transparent to reduce tax evasion.

2. It eliminated the frustration of civilians standing in big queues in banks for even small transactions.

3. It became lot easier for people to keep a track record of their expenses via online apps and internet banking rather than noting them down.

4. It made shopping go very smooth, where people could just pay for any item using mobile phones when in earlier times they had to carry huge cash with lingering fear of theft.

5. It saved resources like paper and ink and even time as all the online transactions are too fast and even accurate as there's no question of counting mistakes and all.

6. Earlier, on holidays, when banks remain closed, people really faced a lot of trouble for emergency needs, but this problem too was solved with cashless economy.

7. Within few minutes money can be transferred into the bank accounts of anyone who is in need, that too round the clock.

Now, coming to the limitations or demerits of cashless economy.

1. The biggest concern is the breach or leakage of bank account details by hackers. So, it is the government's prime duty to secure the transactions and details of every citizen or else people will lose trust on this system.

2. Cashless economy is a boon for the urban population but people residing in rural areas are not that educated and awate that they could understand these technology based apps and Internet banking. It becomes a challenge for the government to have training courses in villages to ensure that atleast one member in each family is trained for online transactions to avoid cyber crime and leakage of data and proper understanding of the cashless system.

3. Even senior citizens who don't have much knowledge about these things find it really difficult to operate mobile phones.

Hello everyone,

Today's topic is very much interesting and relevant to the economy of India. A cashless economy means we are doing a transaction of money with the help of the internet or different type of platforms. As we all know that every coin has 2 sides, so a cashless economy also has some merits and demerits accordingly. So, I am going to talk about both things.

Merits:

1) With the help of a cashless economy, we have no need to carry money in our pockets. Because sometimes carry a big amount of money can be harmful to us.

2) A cashless economy gives you a facility of transparent and reliable, payment of hotel bills, restaurant bills, etc.

3) You have no need to go in the long queue of banks, with the help of Paytm, google pay, phone pay you can do any type of transaction of money which is a very easy and helpful thing.

4) "Time is the most prestigious thing in everyone's life' so a cashless economy saves our time and energy.

5) Our honourable PM Mr. Modi always exclaimed on Digitalization and cashless economy because by this we can stop the black money and corrupted people who have lots of black money in their accounts.

Demerits:

1) Cashless is a good technique for us to save time, energy, and efforts, but on the other side India right now is a list of developing countries, a lot of people in India don't have a smartphone, the best internet facility even electricity also. So they can believe in his technology.

2) With the development in technology simultaneously no. Of hackers and thieves also increases day by day, they can hack your bank account in a single second if you are not aware of the precautions.

3) After the 73 years of freedom in India, Village citizens believe only in cash because they aren't aware of the cashless economy. They have no bank account, So it is the duty of govt that they have to arrange campaigns in the remote and backward areas of India.

So, although there are lots of merits and demerits of the cashless economy, eventually I strongly believe in a cashless economy because by this I am utilizing my save time in different activities.

Thank you!

The cashless economy is growing and irrespective of whether we like it or not, it is the future.

Let's look at reasons why it is inevitably the way forward,

A) It saves TIME. The bustle of waiting in ATMs/Banks for cash and looking for a change in case of smaller transactions is eliminated. Transactions can be made by the click of a button.

B) It helps the government keep a check on all financial activities. This not only prevents IT frauds but also aids in better management of monetary resources.

C) It makes international transfers much easier, attracting foreign investments and thus giving a boost to the ever-growing international trades.

D) It also makes it easy for individuals to manage their finances, one doesn't have to worry about updating their passbooks or keeping a check on their chits because a cashless economy helps them easily invest online through mutual funds and various other methods.

E) Cashless transactions have made spending money much easier for a middle-class man, one can order food sitting at home and can access entertainment platforms remotely. As a result, there are increased employment opportunities in new sectors.

As fast as cashless transactions have taken control of our economy in recent times, it is important to note that there are various threats that accompany this move,

A) People with half baked financial knowledge find it easier to invest now and hence end up putting their hard-earned money blindly into cryptocurrency, NFTs and similar modes in high hopes that they will receive high dividends only to end up with huge losses the majority of the time.

B) Most people with poor economical backgrounds aren't exposed to the harsh realities of the internet world and fall prey to fraud online stores, brokers and various other scammers.

C) Cashless economy gives you the luxury of spending money sitting at the comfort of your house and this has led to people spending more money on online platforms of big companies. This financially hurts local shops that rely on people physically coming to their store to buy their products.

Hello everyone.

My name is Ankit and I am here to give my points on the given topic.

First of all, let me tell you what is cashless economy? Cashless economy means doing anything, buying anything without paying money in cash form.

This is really great initiative taken by pm Modi to make India digitalize and cashless.

There are so many advantages of cashless economy.

Advantages:

1. Due to cashless economy now we need not to wait in a que for any type of transaction, hence it saves a lot of or time and energy.

2. It keep us safe everywhere from robbery as we need not to carry cash with us everywhere.

3. We can easily make payments in few seconds without having cash with us with the help of Google pay, Paytm, Yono SBI etc.

4. We need not to fill form and wait for our time by standing in a queue in bank. Hence it saves our time, energy etc.

5. We can book train ticket, flight ticket and can pay from home sitting at any place.

As every coin has two sides it has some demerits too.

Demerits:

1. The biggest challenge is internet as every online work depends on internet, if there is not proper internet available we can not use these resources in proper way.

2. In villages and hilly areas there is a lot of networking issue so these resources doesn't work there.

3. India is a developing country As technology is increasing day by day hackers are also increasing that can hack our data. So there is security issue but our government is very strict against it.

4. In India there is a lot of problem of unemployment so there are many people who has no electric device such as smartphones to use these resources. So it is not available for every type of citizen.

In conclusion I would like to say that cashless economy is time saving, energy saving, that is a golden opportunity for us but we have to take care of our security, and government should also do something good in villages by solving problem of electricity, and government should also take care of our security and should take very strict action against hackers.

Thanks a lot for reading carefully.