Efficiency without Compulsion: Economic Trade-offs in the Transition to a Cashless Society (OpenAlex (recherche mondiale))

Summary

• The document establishes a distinction between voluntary payment digitalisation and forced cashlessness, evaluating welfare trade-offs across financial inclusion, privacy, and system resilience.p.1
• A 2025 survey cited from Federal Reserve Financial Services indicates that 76% of U.S. consumers carried money with them.p.5
• According to the same survey data, four out of five consumers reported using cash in the past 30 days.p.5
• The survey results show that 90% of consumers planned to continue using cash in the future.p.5
• Cash serves as a technologically independent backup option that remains operational without network connections or real-time authorisation during power or telecommunications outages.p.5
• The paper proposes a policy principle of payment pluralism: supporting digital-first payment innovation while preserving access to cash and offline fallbacks.p.1

Key insights

1. Digital payments lower transaction friction and expand market scale, but compulsory cashlessness can eliminate self-control mechanisms and heighten consumer exclusion.p.1
2. Payment methods that handle a minority of routine transactions can still generate substantial welfare by acting as safeguards during system failures.p.2
3. Reducing the visibility and immediacy of payments can lower payment salience and weaken spending self-restraint for certain consumers.p.3
4. Digital financial inclusion measures must account for barriers such as connectivity, literacy, disability, affordability, and identity verification.p.4
5. Survey data from Federal Reserve Financial Services reveals that 76% of U.S. consumers carried cash in 2025.p.5
6. The same survey records that 90% of respondents intended to maintain their cash usage.p.5
7. Cash delivers crucial option value by maintaining payment system operational capacity during cyber incidents, grid outages, or telecom failures.p.5
8. Adopting payment pluralism balances digital convenience with structural resilience and public accessibility.p.7