Unbanked populations and cash dependency
Roughly 1.4 billion adults worldwide remain unbanked, meaning they have no access to a formal bank account, debit card, or mobile money service tied to a regulated institution. For this huge segment of the global population, cash isn't a preference; it's the only realistic option for earning, saving, and spending money.
Unbanked populations are concentrated in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, often in rural areas far from bank branches, or among populations without the documentation required to open an account. Mobile money services like M-Pesa in Kenya have made meaningful progress in some regions, but a large gap remains globally.
Cash and informal economies
In many developing economies, a significant share of economic activity happens in the informal sector: unregistered businesses, day labor, street vending, and small-scale agriculture that operate outside formal tax and regulatory systems. Cash is the natural currency of the informal economy because it leaves no digital trail and requires no banking relationship.
This isn't unique to poorer countries. Even in wealthy nations like Germany and Italy, a notable cash preference is partly linked to the size of their informal or under-reported economic activity, sometimes referred to as the "shadow economy."
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
Over 130 countries are now researching, piloting, or have launched a central bank digital currency: a digital form of a country's official currency, issued and backed directly by the central bank rather than a private company. China's digital yuan (e-CNY) is the largest live pilot, while the European Central Bank continues developing a digital euro and the US Federal Reserve has explored a digital dollar concept without committing to a full launch.
CBDCs are often framed as a way to modernize payment systems and improve financial inclusion, though they also raise significant questions around privacy and government oversight of individual transactions, which has slowed adoption and public enthusiasm in several countries.
Why cash persists even as digital payments grow
Despite the rapid global growth of card and mobile payments, cash remains remarkably resilient for several structural reasons: it works without electricity or internet access, it offers complete transaction privacy, it has zero counterparty risk (no bank or app can fail and take your money with it), and it's universally accepted regardless of someone's banking status, credit history, or technical literacy.
For these reasons, most economists expect cash to persist as a meaningful part of the global economy for decades, even as its overall share of transactions continues to decline in wealthier, more digitally connected nations.