The weaknesses of a digital economy

Is there any downside to going cashless?

Not really, but there are challenges, Usman Ahmed, head of Global Public Affairs and Strategic Research at PayPal, says during a livestream conversation on closing the global digital gap hosted by GZERO in partnership with Visa.

On the one hand, digitizing payment allows the creation of other financial services around it — mainly access to finance for the unbanked. On the other, there are privacy and security concerns, although these also exist with cash.

Overall, though, Ahmed believes that going digital is something that nobody will solve on their own. Governments and the private sector need to work together, and digital access is useless without digital literacy.