無論是在美國還是在國際上，都有越來越多的人開始爭論，在線下的面對面交易中，企業(yè)和商戶是否還有必要收現(xiàn)金。

美國的舊金山和費城已經(jīng)明令禁止商戶拒收現(xiàn)金的行為，理由是這些商戶涉嫌歧視沒有銀行賬戶的低收入人群。整個新澤西州也出臺了類似規(guī)定。另外，美國國會也引入了兩項法案，擬禁止商家拒收現(xiàn)金的行為。

世界銀行也表示，無現(xiàn)金商業(yè)在國際上的興起，很可能導(dǎo)致新興市場國家的很多消費者和小企業(yè)被邊緣化，因為很多人可能沒有銀行賬戶，很多小商家也可能接觸不到可靠的電子支付技術(shù)。

當(dāng)然，無現(xiàn)金經(jīng)濟(jì)也有很多好處，比如安全、便利、易于開展業(yè)務(wù)等等。然而相比這些好處，更值得人擔(dān)憂的，是一個無現(xiàn)金的社會很可能將經(jīng)濟(jì)基礎(chǔ)薄弱的人拋在后頭。

作為全球最大的數(shù)字和實體貨幣支付服務(wù)商之一（去年的交易額超3000美元），正方兩反的觀點我都是能聽到的。然而不管一個人對平等問題怎么看，我們都應(yīng)該以更務(wù)實的角度看待這場辯論。我認(rèn)為如果對無現(xiàn)金經(jīng)濟(jì)推動得太猛、太快，對企業(yè)是有百害無一利的。如果一家企業(yè)拒絕接受現(xiàn)金，那就等于放棄了世界上的很多錢不賺。

事實上，目前全球的大多數(shù)貨幣交易仍然以現(xiàn)金形式進(jìn)行。世界銀行的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，全球的小型零售企業(yè)平均每年交易的現(xiàn)金達(dá)19萬億美元——幾乎相當(dāng)于全球 GDP的四分之一。使用現(xiàn)金交易的并非只有貧困人口和低收入國家。根據(jù)全球安全公司G4S的數(shù)據(jù)，在歐洲，去年所有的線下銷售有79%是通過現(xiàn)金交易的，較2016年的60%甚至還有所上升。

據(jù)舊金山聯(lián)邦儲備銀行計算，在美國，盡管網(wǎng)購市場增長迅速，但還是有77%的支付是面對面完成的，其中現(xiàn)金支付又占了39%。據(jù)美國聯(lián)邦存款保險公司估計，2017年，在840萬個美國家庭中，約有1400萬名成年人是“無銀行賬戶者”，也就是既沒有支票戶頭，也沒有儲蓄賬戶。

無現(xiàn)金聽起來是一件簡單的事情，但實際上，它需要與一張借記卡相連，或者將手機(jī)錢包與銀行賬戶相連，此外還要有必要的銷售點技術(shù)和網(wǎng)絡(luò)接口。目前，全球約有17億名成年人沒有可以用于支付和儲蓄的交易賬戶。換句話說，要想建成普及全球所有人的無現(xiàn)金經(jīng)濟(jì)，目前還差得很遠(yuǎn)。

只要在開羅或內(nèi)羅比熙熙攘攘的市場上走走，就可以看出，當(dāng)前的科技發(fā)展還沒有能夠滿足很多人做生意的需要。比如在肯尼亞，所謂的“無分支銀行”服務(wù)非常流行，M-Pesa移動錢包的日均交易量達(dá)到1600余萬次。但由于缺乏銷售點基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，很多肯尼亞人在購買日用商品前，只能先將移動賬戶里的錢兌換成現(xiàn)金。

在全球范圍內(nèi)，各國的經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展有快有慢，消費者需求和可用技術(shù)千差萬別，任何一種方法都難以迅速成為主流。

在許多國家，即使人們已經(jīng)有能力在線購物，他們?nèi)匀唤?jīng)常需要用到現(xiàn)金。有鑒于此，西聯(lián)打造了一套系統(tǒng)，使亞洲、非洲、南美洲的消費者既能夠登錄亞馬遜進(jìn)行海淘，同時又可以用當(dāng)?shù)刎泿排c人面對面交易。這也給西聯(lián)帶來了很多潛在客戶，包括亞馬遜在內(nèi)的一些大企業(yè)都樂于使用這套系統(tǒng)。

在美國，目前各地、各州乃至聯(lián)邦層面都在出臺禁止企業(yè)拒收現(xiàn)金行為的相關(guān)規(guī)定，這不僅引發(fā)了一場激烈的辯論，同時也讓人更加關(guān)注龐大的電子支付基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施。這些基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施花了幾十年才建立起來，為消費者在線購物、自動結(jié)算、在線預(yù)訂酒店等帶來了極大的便利性。雖然很多人認(rèn)為平順的移動支付是理所應(yīng)當(dāng)有的，但也并非所有人都這么看。

未來只有當(dāng)我們有了更多的支付選項、更多的消費選擇時，全世界的人民和企業(yè)才會迎來更多的機(jī)會。只有我們創(chuàng)新思考支付生態(tài)系統(tǒng)問題，這一切才有可能發(fā)生。另外，實體貨幣領(lǐng)域也是有創(chuàng)新空間的。比如你可以想象一下，內(nèi)置了射頻識別芯片的“智能現(xiàn)金”，必定能夠大大提高支付的安全性，減少被偽造的機(jī)率。

金融業(yè)應(yīng)該加快推進(jìn)包容性創(chuàng)新，為消費者提供更多解決方案，不管他們屬于金融服務(wù)客戶群的上層還是底層。金融業(yè)應(yīng)該以開放的心態(tài)，迎接一個現(xiàn)金與數(shù)字支付共存的世界。

金融、科技行業(yè)和政府部門領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人應(yīng)該共同努力，重新思考支付創(chuàng)新的未來，首先要做的，就是要把金融的包容性作為一個核心價值。這對企業(yè)來說，不僅是唯一正確的做法，也是確保未來全面參與全球經(jīng)濟(jì)的唯一途徑。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

本文作者賀博睿（Hikmet Ersek）是西聯(lián)公司總裁兼首席執(zhí)行官。

譯者：樸成奎

There’s a growing debate across the U.S., and internationally, about whether businesses should be required to accept cash in face-to-face transactions.

San Francisco and Philadelphia have banned cashless-only retailing, arguing that such businesses discriminate against low-income people who might not have bank accounts. The entire state of New Jersey has done likewise. And two bills that would ban cashless stores have been introduced in Congress.

Meanwhile, the World Bank makes the case that the international rise of cashless commerce threatens to marginalize too many consumers and small businesses in emerging-market countries because people may not have bank accounts and merchants may not have access to reliable electronic payment technology.

There are compelling security, convenience, and business arguments for going cashless, of course. But such benefits would not outweigh the cost to society of leaving economically vulnerable people behind.

As CEO of one of the world’s largest digital and physical money movers (over $300 billion last year), I can see both sides of the cashless debate. But regardless of one’s view on inequality, there’s also a more pragmatic way to frame the debate. Pushing too hard and too fast toward a cashless economy is simply bad for business. If a company refuses to take cash, that leaves a lot of the world’s money on the table.

The fact is much of the world’s money still changes hands as cash. Data from the World Bank shows that small retailers transact $19 trillion in cash a year—nearly one-fourth of global GDP. And that’s not just in poor neighborhoods or low-income countries. In Europe, according to the global security company G4S, an estimated 79% of all point-of-sale transactions were conducted in cash last year—which was actually up from 60% in 2016.

In the U.S., the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has calculated, even as online shopping continues to grow, 77% of payments are made in person, with cash accounting for 39% of the volume. And the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation estimated that in 2017, 14 million adults in 8.4 million U.S. households were “unbanked”—lacking a checking or savings account.

Going cashless sounds simple but, in reality, it requires access to a debit card or mobile wallet linked to a bank account, and the necessary point-of-sale technology and network access for businesses. Around 1.7 billion adults globally do not have access to a transaction account that can be used to receive payments and make deposits. In other words, the world is still a long way from having a completely cashless economy that would function for everyone.

All it takes is a walk through a bustling market in Cairo or Nairobi to see technology’s failure to accommodate the way many people want to do business. In Kenya, where so-called branchless banking is broadly available, and 16 million transactions happen daily on the M-Pesa mobile wallet, consumers still must often convert to cash before they can pay for many daily goods because the point-of-sale infrastructure simply isn’t there.

The global economy and the global spectrum of customer needs and accessible technologies are too varied to try to move too fast on any one approach.

In many countries, even where people have the ability to make online purchases, they often still need to need to pay for them in cash. That is why Western Union created systems enabling tens of millions of consumers across Asia, Africa, and South America to shop on Amazon’s website globally and pay in-person in the local currency. That’s a lot of new potential customers—business that companies like Amazon are happy to have.

Here in the U.S., efforts at the local, state, and (now) federal level to ban cashless commerce have spurred a healthy debate and are making people more mindful of the gigantic electronic payment infrastructure that has been built behind the scenes in recent decades to enable conveniences like online shopping, automatic bill paying, and online hotel bookings. While many take these frictionless payments for granted, not everyone enjoys that privilege.

A future with more payment options and more consumer choices is a future of vastly expanded opportunities for the world’s people and businesses. But it can happen only if we demand new ways of thinking about the payments ecosystem. There’s even room for innovation in physical currency, too: Imagine issuing smart cash embedded with RFID chips that would improve security and reduce counterfeiting.

The financial industry should step up to more inclusive innovation and offer consumers solutions regardless of where they live on the financial-services spectrum, and embrace the complexity of a world where cash and digital payments coexist far into the future.

Leaders from the financial, technology, and government sectors need to come together and rethink the future of payments innovation, starting with financial inclusion as a core value. It’s not only the right thing to do—for businesses, it’s the only way to ensure full participation in the global economy.

Hikmet Ersek is president and CEO of The Western Union Company.