Cash may be on the endangered list

On June 27, the ATM turned 50. Former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker once described it as the "only useful innovation in banking." But today, the cash that ATMs dispense may be on the endangered list.

Cash is being displaced in so many ways that it's hard to keep track. There are credit cards and electronic payments, apps, mobile payments services, crypto-currencies that operate outside the purview of central banks and localised offerings.

These innovations are encouraging cashlessness across communities worldwide.

It's reasonable to expect cash to follow the path of other goods that have been replaced by digital alternatives, such as photos, music and movies. Will cash ­ and the ATMs that dispense it ­ experience a "Blockbuster" moment and disappear from our neighbourhood?

Not so fast. Cash will likely become less popular, thanks to the high cost of using cash and the growing array of alternatives.But I expect it will remain with us forever. The future will be "less cash," rather than cashless.

As of 2013, approximately 85 per cent of the world's transactions involved cash. Reliance on cash is quite uneven across the world. While Singapore, the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Switzerland are among the least cash-reliant countries, in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Peru and Egypt, only 1 per cent of transactions are cashless.

No matter where we are, let us celebrate the ATM's half-century of service. The human connection with cash will be hard to break. Though cash may become less popular, rest assured that there will always be someone who will stop you in the street asking for directions to the nearest ATM.