Economies minus Currency Notes and Coins!

When ATM Cards, Credit cards and other similar instruments were introduced hype was that the age of plastic money has arrived. Now we live in plastic money era.

True, plastic money is convenient, safe (to much lesser extent these days) , easily accessible and handy in OTC and web-based payments. But my question is, has it totally eliminated the need for printing fresh currency bills and minting new coins? No.

Economies all over the world spend huge amounts for this purpose and we still keep large sums as liquid cash in banks and other establishments. Why can't we do away with the system of currency notes and coins altogether? I think there is such a possibility in this digital era. But we need to fortify and streamline the security aspects regarding such an action. Once this been in place and doing what it's expected to do, effectively and efficiently, we can assign one's monetary and other financial assets, in digit-al terms.

Suppose, I own assets worth 1,000,000 million and the financial value, which we ascribe to it in terms of market forces, can be easily ascertained and put into use for day-to-day transactions and other deals. Being 'Value' a subjective and intangible term, the value we assign to currency notes and coins also are subjective, intangible, and fluctuational. So why can't we save and amass our fortunes in terms of digit-al values which might serve the same purpose as notes and coins does. This will save us from the troubles of fake notes and coins, difficulty and the security aspect of carrying cash with person, securing large sums in vaults, money spend for printing notes and minting coins etc. etc.

I think it's time we gave serious thought to such a possibility ensuring liquidity digitally!

Getting a new Loan or Credit Card!

When getting a credit card/loan, either do find some time to fill up those necessary documents in your own handwriting and take a photocopy of it or fill up whatever you can (especially the indispensable info), take a photocopy of it as well as of the id card of the bearer of the document, in this case, the sales executive. And please do not forget to take a business card also.

This might be of great help should you find yourselves in a tight spot in matters regarding credit card/loan. A friend of mine has a credit card and recently he found a certain amount deducted from his salary account towards credit card payment, though he never opted for the auto-debit option. When enquired, he was told that the documents showed he opted for the same!

The real problem: He had a taken a loan also and the loan repayments were made directly from his salary account. Luckily, he found balance in his salary account statement short of loan repayment amount, much earlier than the due date for the loan repayment amount and saved himself from penalty charges and loan repayment default by depositing the amount that was short.

So be careful when it comes to filling up forms like these...