Analisi Comparativa del Percorso di Svezia, Cina e Italia verso una Società Cashless

As the world becomes digital and many turns to disruptive innovations. It is undeniable that we are living in a fast-paced world that is changing the way we live our everyday lives. A major part of our daily routine is linked to Money. Now, a new and revolutionary phenomenon is being discussed, of whether the future will consist of a Cashless Society. The idea behind this work of mine derives from a personal encounter on e-payments at the beginning of pandemic where I was refused to pay via cash in a supermarket because it was believed that the less exchanges of coins and paper money, the less transmission of corona virus there will be, and so clients were encouraged to pay cashless. This thesis will begin by unwrapping the historical evolution of money from precious metals to electronic money. Just like how a coin has its respective heads and tails, and so it is indispensable to assess the benefits and costs of becoming cashless. Furthermore, proposing a comparative look between three relevant countries: Sweden, China and Italy. Specifically on their route towards their respective journey on becoming a Cashless Society. Sweden, as predicted by the experts to achieve a cashless society by the time of 2030, or even sooner than that. The People’s Republic of China, as a one leading data driven country with a successful digital payments implementation and is now getting ready to launch the world’s central bank digital currency by the time of Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. Lastly, Italy, which is still far from being cashless but has recently launched a sort of experiment of a national cashback program that stimulates its residents to start using electronic payments abandoning the dominated cash culture. On a final note, this work will address the COVID-19 effects on payment behavioral change and the new opportunities it created to the FinTech payment industry. In this writing, the term cashless is referred to any financial transactions that are not determine by physical money or hard currency. Whether centralized electronic forms such as payment electronic cards or decentralized digital forms launching peer-to-peer payment platforms.