The Cashless Economy

choi

The Cashless Economy; More digitised countries use less cash. Enthusiastic governments can speed things along. Economist, Aug 3. 2019 (in a new column called "Graphic detail")
https://www.economist.com/graphi ... ountries-ditch-cash
("Most transactions around the world are still conducted in cash. However, its share is falling rapidly, from 89% in 2013 to 77% today. Despite the attention paid to mobile banking in emerging markets, it is rich countries * * * that have led the trend. Within the rich world, more-digitised societies tend to make fewer cash payments. In Nordic countries like Norway and Denmark, where 97% of people use the internet, around four out of five transactions were already cashless by 2016, according to a recent review chaired by Huw van Steenis of the Bank of England. In contrast, internet penetration in Italy is just 61%, and 85% of transactions there were still handled in cash in 2016. * * * Public policy also makes a difference. Some cities, such as London and Amsterdam, have banned on-board cash payment on public buses. * * * Japan, in contrast, uses more cash than its internet usage would indicate. Historically, it had a sleepy credit-card monopoly entrenched by regulation, which discouraged foreign firms from investing")

My comment:
(a) There is  no need to read the rest. "Cashless" here includes credit cards, noy just mobile payments.
(b) There is a graphic in print that is informative. One may search images.google.com with (cashless Economist Huw van Steenis) -- no quotation marks -- two desirable returns appear. One is from Economist.com, which is cut off in the bottom.

The other is from "jec.cl" which is complete: China is still fundamentally cash-based society (presumably outside major cities it is overwhelming so). Japan is to the right of Germany. At the bottom of the graphic is a scale of GDP per person "At market prices," which means foreign exchange rates.
(c) "a recent review chaired by Huw van Steenis of the Bank of England"
(i)
(A) Huw van Steenis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huw_van_Steenis
(1969- ; table: Nationality  British; is currently Senior Adviser to the Governor, Bank of England; section 1 Education)
(B) His last name is Dutch, see, eg, Cornelis Gijsbert Gerrit Jan van Steenis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co ... rit_Jan_van_Steenis

Huw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huw
(ii) Huw van Steenis, The Future of Finance Report. Bank of England, June 20, 2019
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/report/2019/future-of-finance
(At page 29 of full report (as opposed to Executive Summary) is Box 1: Innovation in Chinese payments: "1 In 2017, mobile payment transactions in China totalled US$15.4tn. This is significantly more than the combined total global transactions processed by Visa and Mastercard (US$12.5tn)." (footnote omitted) )
(d) Japan "had a sleepy credit-card monopoly." I do not know what it (sentence) means.
(i) Written by Sawada Tomomi and translated by Sandy Lau, Using Credit Cards In Japan - A Guide To Money During Your Trip. Matcha, July 6, 2018
https://matcha-jp.com/en/5919
("Japan has a low credit card usage rate when compared to the West. According to a 2016 report, results revealed that 84% percent of people in Japan own credit cards, and the use of electronic money, including credit cards and IC cards (rechargeable cards), is 66% (JCB, General Credit Card Study in 2016, reported in Japanese).  In this way, Japan is still a firmly rooted cash-based society with many people who pay by cash despite having a credit card
(ii)  Mastercard and Visa are used in Japan. The last indigenous credit card in Japan is JCB Co, Ltd (Founded in 1961 as Japan Credit Bureau; based in Tokyo)  en.wikipedia.org for "JCB Co, Ltd."
(iii) JCB World Report. No 42. August 2007, at page 6
https://www.global.jcb/en/busine ... rt/pdf/WR_No.42.pdf
("the credit card [JCB] share of Japan's consumer market is still only 10%")