Looking forward to the Cashless World

Face it, money in the form of bills and coins will soon be a distant memory. In 20 years,  more than 80% of sales will involve electronic money in some form or shape. And the bank that figures that out first will become the Toyota Prius of the 21st century. That is, a bank that everyone flocks to, growing faster than any other bank, and making it easier for people buy things without pulling out the ol’ wallet.

This isn’t just me talking about one less thing to carry on our person, like keys, watches, and the like. I’ve already gone on and on about that. It’s about getting rid of dirty bills, time to make change, and the government expense of creating, distributing, and shredding bills.

See “Your Money is dirtier than you Think. Or not…

But banks love the idea of the Cashless Society. There’s big money in brokering the exchange of money online, using credit cards, and such. So the bank that does this for the least amount of fees will become the next Facebook. Right now PayPal is the state of the art example. But their cost will be easy to beat because right now they feel no pressure to keep their prices down.

“PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It may also charge a fee for receiving money, proportional to the amount received. The fees depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient’s account type. In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies.” ~ Business Marking Blog

So buyer beware. Consider this, I use Amazon for most purchases because there are no additional fees like there are with PayPal. And, I read the reviews to help me make the right choice. Note, I now work for Amazon.

But if I’m on eBay, which owns PayPal, it’s just easier to pay the extra fee because I’m buying used for a significant discount so that the fee is insignificant compared to the price of something new. So compare, shop wisely, and only buy when you have the best price. By being a cautious consumer, we can help make the move to a cashless world, not an expensive proposition.