In cash based policy, there are so many negative effect (though it has its own benefits) it has had on the economy, such as too much volume of money in circulation which can cause inflation, high cost of printing the denominations and exposure to robbery to name a few, whereas the cashless policy on the other hand can easily resolve these problems, for instance, less volume of money in circulation, reduced risk of inflation, less need for money printing which would save the nation a lot of money.
With this, though cashless policy is being used in my community but has not yet being fully adopted and understood by everybody, therefore there is need to strategize on ways to make cashless policy more effective in the community.
Therefore, this made me come up with some strategies I’m sure would work and these I will be discussing.
SENSITIZATION
To make cashless policy more effective and sensitive in my community, in no doubt, this is one of the wise and effective approaches to making the people in the community get to know the benefits of cashless community. If I’m not mistaken, even in the cities, when a new sensitive development is to be brought to the face of the citizens, we don’t just assume all the people living in the city are well learned and technology oriented and major the broadcast of the information to them on the internet (the social media), and on the media (Televisions, radios and the newspapers). This is so because:-
Not everyone in cities is learned and not everyone in small towns and villages are illiterates.
Not all learned citizens are technology oriented as not all in small towns and villages are novice to technology.
Not all the people that are technology oriented are relevant on the social media as some people’s workload doesn’t even give room for TVs’, radios and the likes.
With these, it makes it very necessary to do sensitization if the information of the benefits of cashless policy is to be well disseminated to everyone in the community.
To do this, special teams should be set up, well equipped and well trained on the benefits of a cashless community and also trained on how to efficiently disseminate information to people in ways and manners that the people in the community would appreciate the concept.
These teams would be in their uniforms which the name of the sponsors have been printed and will go from house to house, school to school, joint to joints and all the possible places in the community to disseminate the information on the benefits of a cashless community.
Furthermore, Campus blast. This is when higher institution of learning (University, Polytechnics, Colleges of education and other technical schools) are visited by celebrities (musicians, comedians, artistes) sponsored my multinationals.
This works like magic because if I’m not mistaking, students are the major drive when it comes to making a home-based or mobile technology trend. When students adopt a particular technology, it gives success to the spread of that particular technology, in that, through them, their parents would know, their parent’s friend also through their parents and also their siblings. Here, the blast is done like a show whereby the celebrities come to entertain the students and a professional educator also come out to educate the students. Including some types of recreational sports could also be adopted, for example skating.
IMPROVEMENT ON THE ELECTRONIC MEANS OF TRANSACTION
In a community, if cashless policy is to be made effective, the number one thing to be put into consideration is the efficiency of the electronic means of transaction. This could the automated teller machines (ATMs’), point of sale machines (POS), internet banking and other means of electronic transactions.
If the procedure of making cashless policy sensitive in a community is outlined into phases, no matter how successful each of the phases are, if the phase at which the electronic means of transaction is to be made efficient is in any manner lagging or not as efficient as proclaimed during the phase of sensitization, the whole effort of making the community a cashless community may be rendered useless.
With all being said, the key technologies required in making a community a cashless community should be treated as a sensitive phase to avoid the people that all they needed to be convinced is just a trial from giving up. And apart from that, it would be pretty frustrating that after successfully making cashless policy efficient in a community, the people in the community can’t enjoy the promised benefits.
HIGH SECURITY OF THE ELECTRONIC MEANS OF TRANSACTION
One of the benefits of cashless policy is to reduce the risk of carrying visible cash-at-hand which can expose one to being robbed, scammed or fraudulently given fake currency. If after making cashless policy more effective in the community, the citizens are still at the risk of being scammed or anything related, in no doubt, this makes it a failure in the part of the government and this will make people wish cashless policy was never introduced, or even at worst protest for the withdrawal of cashless policy from the community and cash withdrawal charge removed.
Therefore, to avoid all these, greater security measures when compared to the ones on ground should be adopted.
To start with, I am sure the commonest means of electronic transaction which is part of what makes a community a cashless community is the Automated Teller Machines (ATM), if citizens are at least 99% sure that if they try withdrawing cash from the ATM anytime within d 24 hours daily (which is really what the ATM is designed for), living a “cashless” life will be a lot easier and acceptable. Therefore,
Competent and well trained and equipped security men should be employed to guard the ATM surrounding for the whole 24hours to avoid any form of robbery,
High definition overhead CCTC camera that can run and record for 24 hours should be used in ATM compartments. This would make it easy for fraudulent transaction on the ATM to be easily traced, be it withdrawal, fund transfer, bill payment or airtime recharge,
ATMs’ that uses thumb print of the account owner to effect any transaction would be a great development also, this will cater for the type of illegal transaction whereby someone that knows one’s ATM card pin code steals the card and steal from one’s account through the ATM.
Furthermore, another notable means of electronic transaction is the Point Of Sale (POS) which is mostly used for the payment of goods purchased and service rendered by providing one’s ATM card, and the money directly debited from the account owners account. With this, if I know the ATM pin of my parents, siblings and friends, I can easily take their cards to the mall and shop from their account without their consent, though they would be alerted about the debit, but what if the ATM card I just shopped with is neither of a person that knows me nor does the card owner knows the whereabout of his/her card?.
Therefore, to curb this, good attention to be paid to educating card users about the “terms and conditions” of using the ATM card for transaction which could be:-
The ATM card being well kept to avoid being stolen, lost or expose the important incrested codes on the card which could be used in card duplication or for internet transactions by fraudsters,
Keeping the card security pin secret,
Immediate report to the bank in case of card loss.
Also, as in the case of internet and social banking, terms of use should well disseminated to account owners (as similar to that of the POS), and the location of transaction should be tracked with the IP address for example, someone that just purchased a good or transferred money online with Nigerian IP, in few minutes time changing to Malaysian IP. That kind of transaction is suspicious and should be verified.
EASY AND QUICK SOLUTION TO ELECTRONIC RELATED TRANSACTION PROBLEMS
Due to high security level and technological advancement, we do have cases whereby account owner might want to make some transaction and problem arising through the process, for example the ATM card being seized inside the ATM, account being debited and physical cash not coming out of the ATM, ATM card loss, one not being able to transfer money online or enjoy any of the cashless policy benefits. If any of these cases should arise and the problem reported but not quickly and nicely addressed, it could be frustrating.
Therefore, to make cashless policy more effective in my community, we should try and make sure anytime complains are lodged in our banks, people should be nicely addressed and the try as much as possible to make sure the problem is quickly solved. And after being solved, they should be enlightened on the possible cause of the problem and easy solutions to them (in the case where the problem could have being solved at home).
Furthermore, special teams could be formed, trained and giving license to tackle any problem relating to cashless means of transaction. This team would be such that, regardless of the bank of the account owner, the can provide solution.
This would be a good idea because there are case scenarios whereby you lodge complains in the bank and they are not able to provided solution immediately but being told to come back later till they are able to consult an ICT expert.
MODERNIZATION
What makes a community a modernized community? This is when the community is up-to-date with social amenities, infrastructures and technology when compared to any other community. Same as modernized city and a nation.
With great modernization comes the quest of the citizens to hunger for the knowledge to enjoy the technologies that comes with the modernization. Therefore if the community is modernized, it would make it easier for people to appreciate the importance of a cashless community and also easier for them to accept the electronic based types of transactions.
Apart from modernization making cashless policy more effective in my community, it will also socially boost the community, positive effect on the technological growth in Nigeria, and also serve as one of the improvement in our financial institutions.
HIGH MERIT TO DEMERIT RATIO
As human beings, when we have something that has substitute or alternative, the first thing we do is to consider the merits of the thing and compare it to its demerits, if the merit is more than its demerits, the thing stands the chance of being considered for use.
If we consider the merits of a cashless community (less risk in carrying cash, saves times, modernization, ease of transaction) to its demerits (hacking and illegal transaction on one’s account), it should be such that the sum of all the possible merits is way higher than that of the demerits. This will make it appealing to people to accept cashless policy and make cashless policy effective in the community.
More so, if we weigh the ratio of the merit to demerits of a cashless policy on the same scale with merit to demerits ratio of cash community, the ratio of merit to demerits of a cashless policy should be way higher than that of merit to demerits ratio of cash community. With this, people will confident enough to be able to accept cashless policy and ready to do anything possible to make it work as they can see its importance over that on the cash community.
EASE OF ELETRONIC-BASED TRANSACTION
One of the reasons for introducing cashless policy is to encourage electronic-based transaction and reducing the amount of physical cash in circulation buy placing charges on daily withdrawal.
The benefits of cashless community which are more than that of the cash community, if can’t be improved upon, should be maintained. That is, the community should be in such a way that, it is a lot easier to make electronic-based transaction when compared to carrying cash.
By Adebiyi Bambo Charles @iambanbo
1 comment:
[…] This Herbal Doctor cured me from HSV-2. He brought my Ex back... R.buckler11@Gmail...come […]
Post a Comment