Wednesday, May 7, 2008
President Encourages People to Reduce Use of Cash Money
Source: Antara News

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono encouraged the people to make optimum use of information technology (IT) in banking and payment systems so as to reduce the use of cash money.

The president spoke in favor of less use of cash money in his speech opening the Asia Pacific Conference and Exhibition 2008 (Apconex) on Financial Transformation at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) on Wednesday.

According to the head of state, the use of non-cash money in the community would be beneficial so long as it speeded up transactions for economic efficiency.

He added the use of non-cash money in the community should be safe from street and cyber crime.

Therefore, the president called on the banking sector to provide the less cash society with a safe and credible system.

Learning from the economic crisis that hit the world twice in the past 10 years, Yudhoyono said that in everything the risk factor should be taken into account.

He said that to totally abolish the use of cash money was out of the question because it was still needed in certain kinds of transactions.

Jokingly, the president said it would be impossible to use credit cards to buy the merchandise of meatball, fruit and vegetable vendors.

On the occasion the head of state also pointed out several negative impacts from globalization because of the world’s economic integration.