THE world is moving towards a cashless society and that explains why in Sweden, the use of cash has fallen below 10%.

       The concept of a digital currency playing a role as a “digital gold” asset in corporate treasuries or institutional investor portfolios is also gaining acceptance among executives according to a survey titled “Digimentality 2022 – Fear and favouring of digital currency” by Economist Impact.

       Over the past 12 months, 27% of the respondents said they always (almost 100% of purchases) use digital payments instead of banknotes, coins or credit cards compared with 22% in the previous year’s study.

       A total of 18% of the respondents say the country they live in will become cashless in the next year or two compared with 17% in 2021 and 14% the year earlier.

       In keeping with the trend, only 13% say their country will not become cashless compared with 19% in 2021 and 28% in 2020.

       There are many ways for people to transact digitally including the use of smartphone apps or digital currencies.

       The common form of digital currency is the open-source variety, typically called a cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, according to the survey.

       However, cash remains king when it comes to trust as eight in 10 (85%) respondents consider cash to be trustworthy as a method of payment, slightly up from last year (83%).

       A total of 3,000 people responded to the consumer survey. They were from developed and developing countries including Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Australia.

       There were also 150 institutional investors and corporate treasury management respondents who took part in the survey.

       CLICK TO ENLARGE