Globalization and Money by Singh Supriya;

Author:Singh, Supriya; [Singh, Supriya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Electronic Money

Information and Timeliness

There has been a great change in the nature of money and banking and it is taken for granted in middle- and high-income countries. We have to go back many years or to older generations to remember the world of savings passbooks, checks, and branches. Reading of Betsy opening a passbook account or her son Barry receiving his wage by check takes us back to what seems to be a long-gone era of banking and payments. Today Betsy and her husband would be receiving their pensions by direct credit in their bank accounts. Her son Barry would also be receiving his wage by direct credit.

Just as financial markets have changed because of information and communication technologies (ICTs), money has become electronic information for households in the West. Money has been information for banks ever since they exchanged money through IOUs and bills of payment. In 1977, money became electronic information with SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). SWIFT provided a secure standardized network for financial institutions to send messages to each other about financial transactions. For retail customers, money became information around the same time with credit cards in the 1970s and then with ATMs and direct credit in the 1980s. Internet and mobile banking and online payments furthered this transformation.

In this chapter I describe how electronic money and the new forms and channels of money that have resulted prompt us to think of the “reality” and nature of money. Electronic money changes the way we pay and get paid for goods and services. It changes the way we manage money. Yet multiple forms and channels of money remain part of a changing mix. I use the available quantitative data on payments in different countries, focusing on consumers. I supplement this with my qualitative research on the use of electronic money in Australia to show how timeliness and cultural values around activities influence which form and channel we use for money in different contexts. I illustrate how electronic money has changed the way we manage money within marriage. At the same time, customers’ values of sharing in marriage and family, together with issues of access and accessibility, have influenced the use of banks’ privacy and security settings for electronic money.

Innovations in electronic money have led to novel currencies and ways of payment. Through it all runs a constant theme that we are moving toward the end of cash or at least a displacement of cash by electronic money. Part of it seems to be a wish to fit the payments world to that of young professionals who grew up with electronic money. Once we get rid of cash and/or the older people who use it, we can move to a more efficient payment system. As I write this, I remind myself that cash and face-to-face transactions are at the center of the financial lives of half the world that is unbanked. Poor men have little access to the new technologies, and poor women have even less.

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