I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. The one thing that's missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash - a method whereby on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B without A knowing B or B knowing A.
Money is catching up to the technological trends transforming all aspects of society and business; entertainment, insurance, health-care, gaming, leisure, retail - all commercial and social verticals are going digital - including money itself.
Digital currency is not going away. It's here to stay.
Earlier, physical currency used to dominate. Now, mobile currency or digital currency is dominating. For digital currency, fintech is very crucial.
Online payment will continue to play an ever-growing and significant role in the development of e-commerce as well as the stimulation of consumer demand.
In this age of electronic money, investors are no longer seduced by a financial 'dance of a thousand veils.' Only hard and accurate information on reserves, current accounts, and monetary and fiscal conditions will keep capital from fleeing precipitously at the first sign of trouble.
The digitisation of money, the rapid expansion of internet access and, of course, the adoption of mobile phones have created the perfect conditions to make it easier, secure, and affordable to save, spend, give, and borrow.
So bitcoin is cyber snob currency.
Even if it does not become cashless economy, it will become a less cash economy, and I think that itself is going to be a good and big achievement, and I think we are, as a country, gone through many of large changes, and ICICI has been a leader in many of them.
The same way we can send and receive an email with anyone, anywhere, for free, or we can share a photo with anyone instantly for free, money will become these digital tokens, and we'll be able to do that with money.
In a cashless society, the cash has been converted into numbers, into signals, into electronic currents. In short: Information replaces cash.
Cash is going to be killed. It will be nostalgia.
Digital payments have already made it easier to move and manage money. While there's more work to do, the potential is real and understood.
I spend my weekends with my Android phone in an elastic band that has tied to my Android phone my driver's license and my credit card. That's how I live. I'm not carrying a wallet anymore. Like, a wallet is a medieval item, right?
The world needs another vehicle to get people to pay in cash.
Technology has come a long way since PayPal.
Most 'digital currencies' are not really digital currencies at all.
I think a lot of people have predicted the demise of cash, and they've frequently been wrong. But there's no question that the smartphone is leading to the digitization of money. You really now have all the power of a bank branch in the palm of your hand.
We live in a digital world where all is available at the touch of a screen. Money has been simplified, changed subtly over time from tangible bills to numbers in cyberspace. Cash is no longer in a cloth bag; it's numbers on a screen. Numbers that can be manipulated and modified. If you run out of numbers, you can just buy some more, right?
I was fascinated by the fact that in Osaka, we saw people using their cell phones to pay for small goods.
Soon it's all going to be digital anyway. It's all going to be saved on a little coin somewhere.
I look around my neighborhood, and I see people hailing a cab or ordering their food and then paying for it all with their phone. I've read about that stuff for a really long time, and now it's starting to become commonplace.
