South Korea To Kill the Coin in Path Towards 'Cashless Society' (cnbc.com)

The central bank in South Korea, one of the world's most technologically advanced and integrated nations, is taking a major step in getting rid of coins in the nation in what is an attempt to become a cashless society. The first step is to get rid of the metal, a feat authorities hope to achieve by 2020. From a report on FT: The Bank of Korea on Thursday announced it will step up its efforts to reduce the circulation of coins, the highest denomination of which is worth less than $0.50. As part of the plan it wants consumers to deposit loose change on to Korea's ubiquitous "T Money" cards -- electronic travel passes that can be used to pay for metro fares, taxi rides and even purchases in 30,000 convenience stores. The proposals are just the latest step for a nation at the forefront of harnessing technology to make citizens' lives more convenient. Online shopping is the norm, as are mobile payments for the country's tech-savvy millennials. South Korea is already one of the least cash-dependent nations in the world. It has among the highest rates of credit card ownership -- about 1.9 per citizen -- and only about 20 percent of Korean payments are made using paper money, according to the BoK. But while convenience is at the crux of the central bank's plan, there are other considerations. The BoK spends more than $40m a year minting coins. There are also costs involved for financial institutions that collect, manage and circulate them.

Comments

Re:Top down decision

[mark-t]

Direct payment is a huge deal here in Canada, and since it became the prominent means of paying for goods here about decade and a half ago, I've actually enjoyed the freedom of not needing to carry cash everywhere I go.... plus, I can also honestly tell people accosting me for money near where I work downtown or at the subway that I do not have any to give them and they'll have every reason to believe me (so it benefits people who don't use direct payment that much but want to lie about carrying cash too).

Re: Another step toward tyeanny

[orlanz]

What are you talking about?

USD is more accepted than ANY other currency globally. The top global commodities are traded in dollar. Just by sheer population volumes in the native countries, the Rupee and Renminbi are probably used a lot. But both those countries keep far more USD debt than any other foreign currency. Euro comes in second, but never replaced the USD in any of the global commodity trades. UK even prices their commodities in USD since the 90s.