A cashless cautionary tale

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

India's recent announcement that it'll get rid of its highest denomination bill brings back memories of a disastrous experiment to invalidate most of its currency in 2016. Today, a critical look at the challenges of going cashless around the world.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:12.1	The world is going cashless.
0:14.3	From Sweden to China to the US, fewer and fewer people are using coins and notes.
0:19.8	In fact, by now you could reasonably imagine a world where cash might be abolished.
0:26.2	The question is though, is that going to be a better world?
0:29.5	To get a glance at how that transition might play out, we can look to India.
0:33.3	Now to be clear, India is not going cashless.
0:36.3	But back in 2016, it did a massive experiment to invalidate 86% of the country's paper
0:42.0	currency.
0:43.0	It was an effort to raise more tax revenue.
0:45.7	And that big announcement forced people to either spend their cash, exchange it for other
0:49.5	bills, or put it into a bank account.
0:52.4	And it was a catastrophe.
0:55.1	This is the indicator from planet money I'm Whalen Wong.
0:57.7	In Nigerian words, the kingdom of cash is growing smaller by the day.
1:02.7	And that has real consequences.
1:04.9	Today on the show, we will learn about a disastrous cash swap in India and we'll piece
1:09.9	together what all this means for the challenges of going cashless around the world.
1:17.9	Support for NPR and the following message come from Indeed.
1:21.4	How your great talent for your business faster with Indeed.
1:24.5	Learning more than 3 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed.
1:28.5	Claim your $75 credit now at Indeed.com slash indicator.
	...

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