Microsoft Word - ECCU Creative Youth Competition Essay KAH

Towards a Cashless Society: Challenges, Opportunities and the Realities for the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union.

Imagine a world where all your financial transactions are conducted in cyberspace.

Imagine a world where upon leaving home with only your vehicle proximity key and cell phone

you are fully equipped to transact business. There is no physical cash in circulation but payments

are made through credit and debit cards, electronic fund transfers or virtual wallets. While this

new world offers many opportunities, we will face formidable hurdles. Just about seventy years

after the British Caribbean Currency Board (BCCB) issued the first banknotes in the region, the

feasibility of a cashless society is being explored, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB)

having recently embarked on an initiative to develop a digital payment and settlement platform.

EC notes, which have been issued by the ECCB since 1984 feature wildlife, cultural icons and

national landmarks of our various OECS territories with a portrait of the queen that reminds us

of our colonial past. In the next seventy years, in this imaginable world, this currency may very

well be a scarce remnant of our past.

Our populations are always sceptical about change, especially technological change.

Public acceptance of a digital currency will certainly be a huge challenge. Many credit unions

today still do not have ATM machines and many merchants still do not have credit card machines

allowing for no electronic transactions. Here in St. Vincent, the Searchlight Newspaper is the

only one of three local newspapers to offer an online e-subscription; this makes it clear that as

a people we are not technologically advanced by any stretch of the imagination. While the

penetration of cell phones is high, these devices are not widely used for mobile banking and

other financial and economic activity. The question arises as to how much of our population is

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