Taking advantages of the rapid advancements in technology, more and more citizens in first world countries such as Australia are becoming increasingly dependent on methods of payment that do not involve cash. Hence, discussion has risen as to whether we should aim for a cashless society. There are two main arguments that support a transition to a cashless society, the first being the fact that there is a decrease in withdrawals from ATMs, indicating that people are using less cash as compared to the same time last year, and the second being that a cashless society would decrease the number of crimes relating to untraceable money such as armed robberies, muggings and tax evasion. On the other hand, there are also arguments against having a cashless society. The key argument being, there is no fast and efficient way to handle the chaos that would result in the event of a technological breakdown, rendering simple everyday transactions impossible. The second argument against a cashless society is that in a newfound economy, banks would be more likely to charge higher transaction fees that would be compulsory for all customers. Hence, whilst we should aim for a cashless society, developments in technology must be made before we are able to successfully do so.
This essay will consider living in a cashless society as a society that does not have both physical bank notes and minted coins as well as personal cheques. All purchases in a cashless society would be made through electronic funds transfer. Examples of such include credit or debit cards, online Internet and mobile phone banking.
The first argument to support the fact that we are moving towards a cashless society is that people are using less cash. This is evidenced by a decrease in the total number of withdrawals made by Australians nationwide. Statistics
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