The progress toward cashless societies is a worldwide trend. For example, Sweden is one of the most progress cashless countries in the world. In ten years, the proportion of cash payment has fallen from 40% to less than 10%. And in the US, Covid-19 has changed American behavior. Although the progress toward a cashless economy in Japan was very slow compared with other developed countries, the Japanese government is implementing policies aimed at increasing the cashless rate to around 40% by 2025 and 80% in the future. This presentation focuses on three countries, Japan, the US and Sweden, and assesses the implications for Japan to promote a cashless society by comparing the current situations of these three countries.
Mr. Daisuke Ueda is a Visiting Scholar of the Reischauer Center for East Asia Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. From 2018-2020, he was a Senior Economist in the Policy Research Institute of the Japanese Ministry of Finance. In this position he participated in workshops of digital payment economies and labor productivity. Prior to this, Mr. Ueda worked as a Special Officer for Research and Statistics in the Policy Planning and Research Division, where he focused on macroeconomics and monetary policy in the United States.
