Why Should We [ALL] Care about Cash? Reflections after MIASA’s “Cash in Crisis in Africa” conference, University of Ghana

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I asked these crucial questions May 2025 at the MIASA “Cash in Crisis in Africa: Navigating Financial Realities in Times of Disruption” conference at the University of Ghana where I shared findings derived from 17+ years of research conducted by the fellows of the Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at the University of California, Irvine.

Cash Conversations in Ghana

MIASA’s Interdisciplinary Fellow Group (IFG12) organized two days of interdisciplinary presentations from researchers, central bankers, financial experts, and practitioners from across Africa (Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Mali, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe), Germany, the UK, and the US to interrogate the above questions, focusing on how cash systems are impacted, transformed, and reimagined in moments of crises across Africa.

It was a welcome treat to be invited to a conference centered around cash. Part of IMTFI’s original mission was to study financial technology and monetary practices of the world’s poorest people. And in studying mobile money uptake and digital payments after all these years, cash came up again and again. Over 75% of IMTFI research-related outputs around digital payments involve cash. It’s a crucial part of our everyday payment infrastructure, whether we notice it or not. And it needs to be maintained so that it is there when we need it the most, especially when there is an emergency or economic shock.

For years, IMTFI has been advocating the importance of cash, especially for the most vulnerable. “It is easy in the developed world to forget things like economic crises. Researchers across Latin America, India and Africa reported disbelief in the wisdom of solely using digital as a store of value: they wanted cash, cows, land, gold  – a diverse portfolio to ensure their wealth will endure even if other institutions do not.”⁸ People need options.

Fabio Knümann of the Deutsche Bundesbank delivered the conference keynote address, stressing that “despite the rise of mobile and electronic payments, cash remains vital to financial inclusion, particularly in African economies where infrastructure gaps persist. ‘Cash remains a vital element of financial inclusion in many parts of the world, particularly in regions where digital infrastructure is limited.’”

He shared data on cash usage at point-of-sale (POS) terminals in the EU, the number of commercial bank branches and automated teller machines (ATMs) in Germany and the circulation of banknotes in the Eurosystem, all pointing towards the diminishing use of cash.

And though the central bank of Germany advocates for payment choice and does not favor one payment method over another, the Deutsche Bundesbank did establish The National Cash Forum to provide “a neutral, central port of call that people can visit for information about the Cash Forum and cash in general”. The concern is that the weakening of cash infrastructure could impact its availability when it is needed the most – during emergencies, not to mention the deleterious effects on the informal economy and the most vulnerable, e.g. the poor, the visually impaired, and the elderly.

Cash Conversations Outside of Ghana

This trend towards banking deserts, the closure of brick and mortar bank branches, the pulling out of ATMs and the limits on cash withdrawals have not been exclusive to Europe or Africa, it’s been happening in the US and other parts of the world as well. The week upon my return stateside, I attended an author book talk featuring Jay Zagorsky, who recently published The Power of Cash: Why Using Paper Money is Good for You and Society. And the messaging was similar, this was an urgent and apolitical issue. Use It or Lose It!

Below are my top two takeaways from Professor Zagorsky’s book presentation:

• The power of cash to help people and society is currently under-appreciated and to ensure cash doesn’t disappear: Use cash at least once a week to help yourself and your country!
• Using cash is a matter of national security! Chapter 6 of the book is titled, “Paper Money Boosts National Defense”. Enemies can attack in many different ways. Crippling a country’s economy is just as effective as bombing “A country that relies on 100% electronic payments is more at risk than one that also uses cash.”

Why Cash Helps in Crisis

I ended my talk in Ghana with this statistic: Ninety-nine percent of the world’s digital communications rely on subsea cables. Currently there are an estimated 600 undersea cables globally, with seventy-seven of them landing on the African continent. Given today’s increasingly interconnected world with its own set of increasing vulnerabilities, how can we prepare for emergencies?

A March 2025 paper from the Carnegie Endowment reports the African coast witnessing the arrival of privately owned undersea cables from Meta, Facebook, Google, and Amazon, signaling a rise in U.S. investments in Africa’s digital economy and lists strategies to reduce risk with undersea cable cuts.  It only seems prudent to have backup plans for disruption, for all of us.

In conclusion, let’s remind ourselves, why is cash so awesome? Why do we/should we love cash? Cash is universally acceptable, settles without fees and works when all systems go down.

It is like the air we breathe – people can easily take it for granted, because it’s just there, working for all of us, all the time.

While I was in Ghana, the US Department of Treasury announced on May 22 to phase out the production of the penny in 2026. IMTFI Director Bill Maurer received a flurry of media requests to comment. One of the reporters wanted to learn more about the conference in Ghana and asked me what the people there thought about the US getting rid of the penny. I told him what was on the news every night was the appreciation of the Cedi against the US dollar. 

Coincidentally, Ghana celebrated 60 years of the Cedi as Ghana’s sole legal tender in July 2025. With the value of the USD going down and the increase of economic uncertainty more globally, why not celebrate the Cedi –and indeed more broadly all cash and coin?

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