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Australia should embrace being a "cashless society": finance official

Xinhua, February 17, 2016 Adjust font size:

Australia should embrace a "cashless society" as it would save the nation billions of dollars and increase security, Australia's Assistant Minister to the Treasurer said on Wednesday.

Alex Hawke said that like checks before it, cash was looming as an unnecessary part of everyday transactions, and said Australia was already "well on the way" to becoming a cashless society.

Hawke told Fairfax Media that it would not only make transactions safer - with less risk of losing cash or having it stolen, embracing a cashless society would also save the economy billions of dollars of money and hours of labor every day.

"The change will lead to countless benefits for all Australians in convenience and security, and will save billions in transaction costs every year," Hawke said on Wednesday.

"The move to a cashless society will be a fundamental shift in the way Australia's payment system operates.

"It's (also) easy to underestimate how much time workers spend on basic arithmetic tasks.

"Making these tasks simpler would save a huge amount of labor for businesses."

He added that new and improved bank security measures have made moving to a cashless society all the more worthwhile.

Hawke said, "Already new, better security technologies are becoming common. Fingerprint scanning and voice recognition provide a level of security far beyond anything previously available, while advanced monitoring software allows financial institutions to know instantly if our details are being stolen."

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, cash was used in 70 percent of transactions in 2007, but fell to 47 percent in 2013 - just six years later. The demand for coins also dropped 25 percent in that time.

Hawke said the next step would be to phase out money similarly to how checks were, but an eventual move to a cashless society would have to be "driven by consumers and businesses choosing the payment methods that are best for them."

The Assistant Minister to the Treasurer called on the government to embrace its recent policy of encouraging an 'innovation and ideas boom,' and said the government needs to ensure that "innovation isn't stifled by ill-considered interventions." Endit