Staff Reporter
Karachi
Countries that prioritize digitized payment economies are better placed to mitigate the associated adverse impact of unemployment, financial exclusion, fraud, theft, cost of cash, and corruption. This was the key takeaway of a new Mastercard white paper titled ‘Cashing Out: Economic Growth through Payment Digitization’. In an analysis that demonstrates the high economic cost of cash prevalence, Mastercard estimates that cost to be at 3.2% to 4.5% of global GDP. This points to an opportunity for countries to increase GDP by growing a digital payments economy to benefit from access to jobs, more robust commercial activity, streamlined business loans, and the reduced cost of operating cash.
