Is the Modern Economy Heading Toward a Cashless and Checkless One? Evidence from the Payments System in Canada

Weinian Liao and Jagdish Handa

The IUP Journal of Bank Management, 2010, vol. IX, issue 4, 48-70

Abstract: The recent innovations in the payments technology have resulted in considerable replacement of cash payments by non-cash ones, and of paper-based payment instruments by electronic ones. Do these innovations mean that the modern economy is heading toward one without currency and checks? This paper uses Canadian data from 1983 to 2001 to find answer to this question. It relies on Gompertz and logistic S-curve growth analyses to model the future replacement of cash payments by non-cash ones and of paper-based payment instruments by electronic ones and predict the saturation levels. Under current technology, while card payments will continue to further substitute for cash at the Point of Sale (POS), their share in total retail payments will saturate at around less than 40%. By comparison, the predicted satiation level for the replacement of checks by electronic payments is about 80%. Hence, under the current technologies, Canada will almost do away with checks, but will continue to use currency to a substantial extent.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:icf:icfjbm:v:9:y:2010:i:4:p:48-70

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The IUP Journal of Bank Management from IUP Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by G R K Murty ().