Written By Mayah Cantave

The world is moving into the future at fast pace toward cashless transactions. The use of wristbands, smart phones and biometrics are only a few ways the world is changing.

London uses wristbands as a means of cashless transactions. Nairobi uses text messages and Sweden uses biometrics. The biometrics transaction is insane. It records your ID based off the vein patterns in your palm then it requires you to enter the last four digits of your phone number. From a logical standpoint, this is a great idea. It’s almost unhackable—almost.

Cashless transactions seem like a good idea. How many times have you lost your debit card or a five-dollar bill in a pair of jeans?

In retrospect, this is not going to be much different from what we use now. All you need is a good pickpocketer to steal all your money. What guarantee do we have that someone can’t steal our money if the wristband, cell phone or any other method of cashless transactions is lost?

Almost all technology is hackable. Hackers will only get more creative. Instead of stealing directly from a person, all they have to do is attack a server or computer.

The idea of cashless transactions is great, but there are a few hiccups we need to get over first. For example, we need backup plans. If a computer or a server goes down, how will you survive? How safe is our information?

Technology is a daily part of our everyday lives. Most jobs and school rely on the use of technology. But we shouldn’t completely rely on technology. We need to have a way to sustain ourselves when technology fails us.

Hopefully, with the growth of new technology, cashless transactions will be fully functional with less security hassles. We can only hope.