IN THE wake of the recent disruptions to the digital payment services of DBS and Citibank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) counselled the public to “carry some cash” as a contingency for outages.

The problem is not that this is bad advice, but that it is very good advice. Seven years after Singapore launched a Payments Roadmap with the ambition to move away from paper-based instruments, the country continues to struggle to wean itself off physical currency.

From a system perspective, physical cash is not desirable. Dollar bills and coins are expensive to produce, distribute and maintain; they also can be used to launder money and to evade taxes. Electronic cash and digital payments do not suffer as much from such issues, and are more environmentally friendly, to boot.