The lay of the land
 
A century ago, purchases as large as houses were often still made with cash, leaving “immaterial” payment means to the very top of the economy. Then came checks and credit cards, which gradually eroded the position of cash in our economies. Today, we have more payment methods than we can count: cash, check, debit card, credit card, wire transfer, swift payment, PayPal, NFC payment, and many others. But as cash had to make room for its competitors, various public and private organizations started daydreaming about how life would be if cash disappeared completely. Well, put simply, some would win, and some would lose, in the shift. The debate therefore hinges on many different parameters and unfolds differently in each country. Scandinavian countries are among the most cashless countries in the world, and it’s hard not to link that to the fact that Northern peoples have traditionally placed immense levels of trust in their government. Germans, on the other hand, have always resisted the cashless revolution - as they remember what can happen when citizens put their entire fate in the hands of an all-powerful State. Many experts have addressed the matter, bringing perspective and nuance into the debate.
 
The upsides of a digital economy
 
Banks would be the first to benefit a cashless world, and they barely hide it. Cash represents the least convenient, most dangerous and most expensive form of money which banks handle. Banknotes must be counted, transported, distributed, collected, changed, etc., all at the expense of the bank. It is therefore unsurprising that they are keen to get rid of this medium, in favor of “electronic money” which can be handled in a far easier way. Banks would thus increase their profits and provide their ensuing share of revitalization to the overall economy. In addition, the deletion of currency would annihilate the risk of bank runs, which send shockwaves throughout economies: if cash didn’t exist, citizens would be unable to withdraw their funds, and banks would be secured. Citadel professor Richard Ebeling, writes : “With nominal interest rates in the United States and some other places around the world still at historical lows (even in the face of recent Federal Reserve rate increases), Rogoff points out that many central bankers hope that more direct fiscal policy will carry the weight of countercyclical activities in the face of any serious recession that may come.”
 
Public agencies would also benefit from all-digital economies. The argument according to which tax evasion occurs mainly through cash is, in fact, obsolete (tax evaders have far more modern and efficient systems within the digital world than suitcases full of heavy cash). But large economic bodies, such as central banks, are often blind sighted by cash. When a public measure is launched, central banks need to measure the effects of the reform, and the feedback is obtained through monitoring computers. The cash segment of the economy is therefore hard to measure because it evades central control. Finally, even though the numbers involved are microscopic, cash is often linked to criminal activities - although banning it would amount to limiting the freedom of the innocent majority, in sanction for the abuse of a small minority.
 
But many looming dangers
 
The risks entailed by a cashless revolution are many. Social inclusion experts fear that an all-digital economy will further disenfranchise the poor, who traditionally have little access to banking services. Professor Sylvain Charlebois, from Dalhousie University, explains : “Almost a million Canadians don’t have a bank account, or a credit card, or a debit card, and so that’s problematic. So, if you are to go cashless, 100 percent, you are excluding a segment of the population that has less means.” Specialized charities see in the demise of cash the death of one of the last remaining opportunities for old people to interact socially, as they visit the store or hand a note to their grandchildren. Professor Steve Worthington, from the Swinburne University of Technology, writes : “About 17% of the British population – over 8 million adults – would struggle to cope in a cashless society, the report says: While most of society recognises the benefits of digital payments, our research shows the technology doesn’t yet work for everyone.” Environmentalist agencies are suspicious of the large hidden cost of the digital era. Toby Miller, professor of cultural industries in London, explains : “suggestions that we live in a dematerialised world are not only exaggerated; they are doing more harm than good. One person's cloud is another's pollution, and one person's mobile is another's enslavement. From electronic waste to conflict minerals, the new media leave an indelible mark on bodies and the Earth they inhabit.” Cyber specialists have identified that any successful attack either on the power grid or on telecommunications systems could cripple our economies in a few hours.
 
Overall, it appears that the lowering trend of cash is relatively harmless, or is even advantageous in some cases, but only if the free choice of citizens is respected. In some cases, people will find cashless payments more convenient and, if they can use them, it makes the world a better place. However, if cash is fully forced out of economies by corporate plans and governmental authority, it will indeed open a pandora’s box, and reverting will be nearly impossible

Cashless challenge is one of the first formalized moves by a private business since the beginning of the cashless slide which started at the end of last century, when consumers started leaving cash aside and paying with plastic instead. Since those early days, many new means of payment have arrived on the market, with a huge boost provided by smartphones flooding the market. Of course, many different parties were fond of this natural trend, such as governments (which see in cash an incentive for crime and a vector for tax evasion) and financial institutions, such as banks and virtual payment companies. Using soft power and media influence, they encouraged it. Riju Dave wrote for the Indian Economic Times : “The ease of conducting financial transactions is probably the biggest motivator to go digital. You will no longer need to carry wads of cash, plastic cards, or even queue up for ATM withdrawals. It’s also a safer and easier spending option when you are travelling.” But things, it seems, were not going fast enough, so Visa decided to give fate a nudge and set up a program which would select 50 participants and hand them over 10,000 dollars. All they have to do in return in give up cash completely, and refuse their customer’s payments if they are in cash. The intent is clearly to push the cashless trend all the way, and kill cash completely. But what would happen to society altogether if Visa, and its many allies in the war on cash, were to win?
 
Kartik Jhaveri is a director for Transcend Consulting. He says :“The benefits are enormous if you leave out the low-income group, which will face a huge challenge”. While the average middle-class citizen has about 10 different ways to pay, according to the setting and his mood, the most modest citizen only has one : cash. He doesn’t have a bank account because banks won’t bother opening one for him, he has no smartphone because he can’t afford one, and he has no credit card terminal because he doesn’t have a use for it and, in many cases in the world, he doesn’t have access to electricity. So, the only way for him to get around is with the little bit of cash in his pocket, earned or panhandled.
 
Many whistleblowers are very worried about what will happen to that man if cash disappears. In last November, India struck hard on cash, by simply cancelling the validity of lower value banknotes (which represented 90% of the nation’s currency). This dealt, as a side effect, a devastating blow to the lower castes, who had nothing else to survive on. Ranjit Goswami wrote for Quartz: “As could have been anticipated, a crisis has engulfed the nation. The degree of suffering directly relates to income, with the poorest of the poor worst affected. Since Nov. 08, 55 people have died due to the currency chaos, never mind the suffering hundreds of millions of ordinary people, mostly among the marginalised, have been enduring.” In short, still a world where the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer. Or do they?
 
What the well-off will gain in convenience and presumed improved economic performance, they will lose sharply in civil liberties. Clearly this is not the intent of Visa, who is merely trying to increase its profits as any business would, but, purposeful or not, the effect will be the same : because every citizen will be forced into the financial and computerized system (which he often only partially comprehends), he will be under the potential scrutiny of very powerful organizations, such as corporations who sell customer data to one another, and their own State. If every transaction is logged and recorded, it will give a perfect tracking tool to those who hold the data : where the customer was, at which time, what he bought, from whom, etc. Bill Jamieson, from Scotsman, warns : “Indeed government control of our savings and wealth - far greater than any intrusion by HMRC or the VAT inspector – is now technologically possible.”  And to those who see this perspective as distantly innocuous, or who trust the state to respect their freedom even if the State does hold the power to pressure them, he reminds that the European Central bank is already “punishing” citizens who refuse to spend their money, in accordance with the ECB policy to boost spending, by pressing interest rates below zero. 
 
In other words, if citizens place their money in the bank instead of spending it, as the ECB would like them to, they will pay a penalty. He specifies : ”[...] back in September the Bank of England’s chief economist Andy Haldane suggested that negative interest rates could be necessary to discourage saving and boost spending and domestic demand. Those with bank deposit accounts would not experience an interest rate reward for saving, but a penalty by way of deduction.” The only way to save their earnings for such citizens is to convert it to cash and withdraw it from the banking network. If cash goes, citizens will obey the State or be stripped. 
 
As a long-term trend, which has accelerated in the past few years, citizens across the world have been increasingly wondering if business interests should always be placed at the top of all social considerations, or if human aspects of life, such as liberties and solidarity, should be yielded to. In the current cashless transformation of the economy, Visa may well encounter popular and activist opposition which it hadn’t accounted for, a few years ago, when the campaign was being designed.  

Everything started on November 8th, when Prime Minister Modi announced the withdrawal of 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes as he declared war on the supposed ‘black money’. He wanted to flush these high value notes out of the system to ‘end the country’s endemic corruption and widespread counterfeiting’. These two notes represented about 86% of all the cash in circulation in India. The notes were replaced with new ones that amounted to just a fraction of the value (and the 1,000 rupee had been discontinued completely).
 
The disruption created a chaos with hundreds of thousands of Indians trying to deposit discontinued notes at the banks. It was painful and made much worse by the poor implementation of the decisions. It paralyzed major segments of India’s economy which is still today almost entirely cash-driven. The crash also caused over 100 deaths and a complete distrust of the institutions. Many lost their jobs because there was no cash available for the employers to pay their employees. 
 
“I’ve never had any land, and now I don’t have a job. I have two kids, one six and the other four, I’ve no idea how I’ll support them. My wife is now the only one in the family who has a job but even she doesn’t get paid any more,” (1) said Devle, a casual labourer who lost his job after Modi’s move.
 
Rapidly, the interests that PM Modi had in the dematerialized payment method sector surfaced. Modi was even attacked by the Congress itself calling Modi to be very clear about the reasons that pushed him to back up an impossible ‘cashless India’. “The Prime Minister should declare the names of international shareholders in mobile wallets, e-wallets, debit and credit card companies whose business prospects have flourished following the Centre’s demonetization move,” said Mohan Prakash, All India Congress Committee’s General Secretary.
 
India and its 1.3 billion citizens represent a very profitable potential market for the sector of debit cards, credit cards, e-wallets and mobile wallets. In a country where cash becomes rare or forbidden, it’s 1.3 billion potential customers that have no choice but to change their financial habits. Modi’s personal relations with foreign shareholders of the sector were brought to light: “Vested foreign powers had been striving for two years to increase their footprint in the country. The Prime Minister and his government is playing into their hands. They are acting as their agents,” claimed Mohan Prakash, who is in-charge of the party affairs in Maharashtra. He further alleged that it was “these very powers who were behind the government’s push for a cashless economy”.
 
An estimation was made that such foreign powers would collectively earn Rs 4 lakh crore (4 trillion rupees) of profits from the PM’s move. “It is for the PM and his ministers to clarify their position”, claimed Prakash.
 
The impact was tremendous and the small-scale industries that have been “adversely hit due to the demonetization-triggered liquidity crunch” (2). The Government was accused of ‘turning a blind eye to their woes’ by Prakash and his followers. Now, movements are asking PM Modi to resign and to compensate the families of those who have lost their lives while queuing up outside ATMs and banks.
 
Just one week later, the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi re-surfaced as he was accused by the Aam Adam Party (AAP) of asking money from Paytm, an app that would reap the benefits of 10 new stations of Delhi Metro going cashless from January 1st.
 
Currently the Dehli Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) uses cash almost entirely but according to an official statement from the ministry of transportation: "10 Metro stations of the Delhi Metro network will go completely cashless in their transactions from January 1, 2017, onwards as part of the Government of India's vision to transform India into a cashless economy.’’ (3)
 
Paytm would be the app allowing these cashless translations to happen. This decision came as following Modi’s push on a cashless India and because of his personal relations with the people directly involved in the app management and development, questions were asked about the counterparts he might have been getting from Paytm.
 
Today the case is being investigated and if the allegations were proved to be true it could very well be the end of PM Modi’s term as well as the end of the cashless fiasco. It is now known for a fact that India isn’t ready for a cashless society and that no one wants it besides the corrupted elements that might take advantage of it despite of the people of India’s distress.
 
(1) Note ban: will it make India, or break Modi?, SCMP, Debasish Roy Chowdhury, January 8th 2017
(2) Foreign powers behind PM Narendra Modi’s cashless drive, says Congress, Express News Service, December 23rd 2016
(3) PM Modi accused of bribery again as 10 Delhi Metro stations go cashless with Paytm from January 1, Arkadev Ghoshal, IBT, December 24th 2016