A peer in the financial sector recently asked why I am”soooo” emotionally invested in this cashless campaign. Before I could explain, he went on to say it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, at least not in the next 10 years.  

My response: experience has been the best teacher.  For starters 5 years ago, I had to withdraw most of my salary, from only 1 bank which accepted my foreign debit card and lived on it as long as possible, paying for EVERYTHING with cash.  Today, many can get a debit card/mobile payments from several banks, therefore needing cash in fewer places.  Some have expressed how easy things are with cashless – so why not ensure everyone, everywhere enjoys the same?  Additionally, over 70% of our population is 35 and can appreciate simplification of payments and the convenience it brings.  I believe they can lead us and future generations to where we do NOT deal with the inconvenience of cash.  This is precisely why I remain steadfast in championing cashless.
Cashless payments:

1. Offer you the opportunity to build and strengthen a relationship with a bank, which is good because:
   • You can build savings to help you achieve goals and deal with emergencies,
   • You can access financial services to grow yourself. For example, you can supplement your salary with a loan to go back to school, start or grow a business (kwihangira umurimo J), buy a car/home etc.,
   • You can get payment tools such as debit card and/or mobile payments to simplify access to your money through payments at POS and/or mobile accepting merchants as well as online (eCommerce). If you must get cash, ATMs/Agents and some cases merchants can give you cash without having to go to bank; and last but certainly not least,
   • You can get POS/mobile/online payments for your business. Making it easy for customers to pay is best for your business and typically when someone isn’t limited by the cash in pocket, they spend more. Additionally, when a bank sees your how you earn i.e. cash flow, your creditworthiness for loans is easier to establish. This could save us all the paperwork involved in applying for even the smallest loans. Few things are more cumbersome.
2.  Save and earn government money which can speed up our achievement of Vision 2020:
   • Cash is expensive
     • Producing money costs more than the actual value of money in most cases. Imagine how much we have spent printing coins, and what we could have done with that. Digital payments greatly reduce the expense of printing cash saving our government a lot of money which can go toward advancing infrastructure development, education, healthcare etc.
     • Securing cash costs money especially for businesses/government. If cash is stolen it is gone forever in most cases. Digital money is harder to steal and is easier to secure and recover in case of fraud.
   • Transparency brought by digital payments reduces corruption and I don’t need to tell you what corruption has deprived us of. It is a cancer we must root out.
   • Higher tax revenues, which are THE key to getting off aid. Today, we have to file taxes and in most cases, government gets taxes based on what we claim to have earned. EBM has helped, but from what I see in most shops, if one doesn’t ask for a receipt, no EBM receipt will be printed. The biggest things we spend on, food and transport, are dominated by cash – we must digitize these to keep more money in our treasury. When digital systems i.e. inventory management coupled with tills which automatically calculate tax and allow for cashless payments, government is guaranteed to generate more revenues.  Let government take a leaf from India and offer a 1-2% tax discount to businesses who submit cashless payment receipts and see if they won’t quickly go looking for them plus 1% for us paying digitally and see how we won’t rush to banks to get payment tools. This can be done for a period of time, maybe six months to a year, by the end of this experiment, I can guarantee cashless will be part of our lives – a win-win for government and citizens.
   • Operational efficiency
     • Removing the need for bank receipts a.k.a. bordereau and other paperwork from citizens paying government saves time and money for all. We must say bye to bordereau (#Byebyeborodero 😃) as we did nyakatsi (grass thatch).
     • Digital payments drive digitization of systems/processes to ensure suppliers are paid swiftly – private sector needs swift payments to for business continuity.
3.  Keep monies within the banking system and drive affordable services. For example, the cost of liquidity (cash) is expensive today because most withdraw it to make payments in everyday life. This is one of the reasons for high interest rates, a whopping 17% today. By going cashless, there’s more money in banks’ treasuries allowing them to lend us money at lower interest rates that are conducive to increased access to finance. Maybe loan rates can reduce to 10% or less by 2020 or sooner.
4. Improve formal financial inclusion. Cashless brings better efficiency to banks allowing them to deploy ubiquitous agent/merchant networks in our communities, making it easy for us to open accounts and access our monies. The more people have bank accounts, the more deposits we have and in-turn swifter economic development.
5. Increase security as cash can expose you to dangerous situations more than digital ones.

I will leave you with a little inspiration, if you haven’t already heard.  Availability of cashless payments options in Rwanda removed the need for UNWFP to import maize/beans/salt/oil for refugees which had been the case for 15 years.  It was expensive for them and gave refugees limited choices all the while distorting market prices on these products.  Today, at least $100,000 is injected in each community selling food/supplies to the refugees.  Food for 3 refugee camps, hosting about 40,000 Congolese refugees is now bought here and surrounding businesses are guaranteed customers each month, which means better quality of life for more Rwandan families plus more money is injected into our economy.  This is one of the best examples of what cashless can do to foster financial inclusion in Rwanda.  

One shop owner told me her business has soared, children are going to better schools, and this is the best opportunity for her family to-date.  She also told me in the beginning, “mugomba gukangurira Abanyarwanda bose izi servisi, kugirango twese turyoherwe iterambere.” Translation: You need to ensure Rwandans know about the benefits of services so we can all enjoy them.  Will you join me in this campaign by leading as an example to your family and friends on the benefits of cashless?

Thank you.