Japan’s banknotes were redesigned on July 3rd. It’s the first new banknotes in 20 years. The circulation of the new banknotes will surely refresh the mood of the Japanese people. On the other hand, I’ve become so used to cashless payments that I haven’t even seen or touched the actual bills yet. There are probably many people like me. Young people, who are used to cashless payments, may not even know that the 10,000 yen note features Eiichi Shibusawa, the 5,000 yen note features Umeko Tsuda, and the 1,000 yen note features Shibasaburo Kitasato.

It is unclear how much the total cost of redesigning the new banknotes will be, but according to the Ministry of Finance, it cost about 770 billion yen to redesign the banknotes. The manufacturing cost per note is about 20 yen, which is 13% higher than the old ones. The government plans to issue 2.95 billion new banknotes this fiscal year, which will cost more than 60 billion yen.
What else does redesigning banknotes have besides the refreshing effect? ​​I’m not sure. I can’t help but think that it would have been better to further promote cashless payments rather than spending the money on redesigning banknotes. From the perspective of combating counterfeit bills, a cashless society is also more effective.

Some have pointed out that printing new banknotes has the effect of encouraging a cashless society, but this is probably a fallacy. There may be a few businesses that do not accept the new banknotes in their vending machines and only accept cashless payments, but this is a rare case. In fact, there are more businesses that are busy updating their machines to accept the new banknotes.

There is no intention to reject cash, and it will not disappear in the future. Cash will continue to be the majority preference in any era. But that does not mean we can ignore the move to a cashless society, which already tends to lag behind the rest of the world. Cashless transactions have now become indispensable in global transactions, and are set to become established and evolve into the future.

Going forward, it seems wise to spend time and money on promoting a cashless society. (Kei Kitajima)

※Translating Japanese articles into English with AI