The history of cashless society - Total Processing (2024)

Have you ever thought about what it means to live in a cashless society? While you may think of cashless payments as a modern phenomenon, with credit cards, debit cards and contactless payments replacing the traditional paper bills in our pockets, the concept of a cashless economy has actually been around for thousands of years. In fact, the Mesopotamians, who lived 8000 years ago, were one of the firsts to create a cashless barter system. Fast forward to today, and the trend towards a completely cashless society is accelerating, with cash increasingly losing ground to plastic, electronic payment methods, cryptocurrencies and other alternative payment methods. Many countries are already taking steps towards becoming fully cashless. Sweden is leading the way and is predicted to achieve a cashless society in less than a decade!

But what does this mean for us? To answer this question, let’s run through the key turning points throughout our history of cashless transactions. Download the infographic here.

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