<Anchor>

Kwon Ae-ri's friendly economy starts. Gwon, today (7th) is about the people who live without wallets and the society without cash?

<Reporter>

Yes. Do you have any people who don't carry their wallets at all? I haven't started to carry around.

All payments are made through mobile phones. In the future, simple payment methods are being developed that do not require a mobile phone to be removed once registered.

I introduced you to facial recognition, which literally causes trauma with my face, and that it was introduced in Korea at the end of last year.

With the development of various methods such as voice payment, intravenous payment, and iris payment, which registers and trades my own voice, at first glance, instead of cash, people just wandered around and are preparing for a payment method that ends the transaction.

A society that does not draw out cash that accelerates the development of all these simple payment methods, Korea is one of the world's leading axes.

As you can see, Sweden is one of the countries that is approaching more cashless society than we are.

We're now down to 20% of cash transactions, and Sweden's down to almost 10%.

<Anchor>

It's amazing that 10% of Sweden is amazing, but it's amazing that our country has fallen below 20%.

<Reporter>

Sweden actually decreased. In fact, even if you go to a money-free society, it's not easy to reduce the amount of paper money you print as the economy grows and your money grows more and more.

Even if paper money growth could slow down a bit. Nevertheless, when we look at the amount of cash being printed against GDP, Sweden actually decreased.

Cash issuance is still higher than we are, but the UK and New Zealand, which are entering a currency-free society, are stagnant.

We are still growing slightly. But recently, I have seen countries that are reducing the issuance of cash itself.

As we are moving fast in this direction, I would like to learn a lesson. The Bank of Korea checked the cases of Sweden, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

These countries have been cutting down on ATMs significantly, as well as the cost of bank branches, as you can see in the table.

In this way, the trend of paper money issuance could be stagnated even though the UK and New Zealand still had a higher proportion of cash transactions.

Efficient management was a good thing right now. But vulnerable people, the elderly, people with disabilities, people living in remote areas, and low-income people have been quickly left out of their money transactions.

<Anchor>

So no matter how popular the credit transaction is, those who only use cash, and that situation can be any number.

<Reporter>

Yes. The development of future finances is important, but it has been a problem that cash access itself and the possibility of cash substitution in the event of an emergency disappear.

Even when I went to Sweden five years ago, I didn't get cash in the traditional market, which was not a rare case.

In fact, 27% of citizens had been refused cash payments in Sweden at the time. This is up to 45% in 2018.

In particular, retailers refused more. The paper money that I receive is that it is already uncomfortable to distribute.

This speeds up the marginalization of vulnerable people and cashiers, where transactions with retailers make up a large part of their lives. It's even harder for them to get cash.

So I did a survey in Sweden, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, and there was a lot of anxiety and dissatisfaction with the disappearance of cash.

Especially in New Zealand, where bank branches and ATMs declined rapidly, 45 percent said they were not prepared for cashless societies.

In addition, if the system becomes messy due to an accident such as a fire or a massive power outage, it can be confusing if cash transfer is difficult. I can't do anything.

If you were in Mapo or Seodaemun in Seoul during the KT fire in downtown Seoul in December 2018, it is a vivid situation to remember.

After I went to Seodaemun, I still don't carry my wallet, but I started to carry 10,000 won in my pocket.

Korea now has fewer bank branches, but it's a huge amount of ATMs, and it's only 2% lower when it started cutting ATMs like these countries. The situation is still very different.

However, Sweden, which has run into a cashless society, has recently seen these issues and in any case decided to turn its policy towards ensuring the cash access of the people themselves.

We need to move on to the future of finance, considering these aspects.