The Global Impact of COVID-19 on Fintech Adoption

Dirty Money

“…On the other hand, there is a significant decline in the volume of ATM withdrawals, along with a surge in credit and debit card transactions (Carvalho and others, 2020). Similarly, Fu and Mishra (2020) find an increase in the use of mobile applications for financial transactions during the COVID-19 era in a sample of 74 countries.…”

“…While some studies show that the fibrous surfaces of banknotes can become contaminated with disease-causing bacteria and viruses (Pope and others, 2002;Thomas and others, 2008;Vriesekoop and others, 2010;Angelakis and others, 2014;Chin and others, 2020), others argue that handling cash is not necessarily a greater source of health risk (Panetta, 2020;van Doremalen and others, 2020). Preliminary data present conflicting signals: physical cash held by the public appears to have increased in some countries during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic (Chen and others, 2020;Goodhart and Ashworth, 2020), while there is a decline in the withdrawal volume from automated teller machines (ATMs) and a significant increase in the use of mobile applications for financial transactions in most countries (Auer, Cornelli, and Frost, 2020;Carvalho and others, 2020;Fu and Mishra, 2020). Therefore, it is an empirical question whether the risk of infectious diseases with human-to-human transmission can cause a precautionary decline in demand for physical cash and give boost to alternative means of payments, including not only debit and credit cards but new payments methods such as mobile payments and central bank digital currency, a digital version of cash.…”

Dirty money: Does the risk of infectious disease lower demand for cash?

“…On the other hand, there is a significant decline in the volume of ATM withdrawals, along with a surge in credit and debit card transactions (Carvalho et al, 2020). Similarly, Fu and Mishra (2020) find an increase in the use of mobile applications for financial transactions during the COVID‐19 era in a sample of 74 countries.…”

“…While some studies show that the fibrous surfaces of banknotes can become contaminated with disease‐causing bacteria and viruses (Angelakis et al, 2014; Chin et al, 2020; Pope et al, 2002; Thomas et al, 2008; Vriesekoop et al, 2010), others argue that handling cash is not necessarily a greater source of health risk (Panetta, 2020; van Doremalen et al, 2020). Preliminary data present conflicting signals: currency‐in‐circulation appears to have increased in some countries during the early days of the COVID‐19 pandemic (Chen et al, 2020; Goodhart & Ashworth, 2020), while there is a decline in the withdrawal volume from automated teller machines (ATMs) and a significant increase in the use of mobile applications for financial transactions in some countries (Auer et al, 2020; Carvalho et al, 2020; Fu & Mishra, 2020). Therefore, it is an empirical question whether the risk of infectious diseases with human‐to‐human transmission can cause a precautionary fall in demand for physical cash and give boost to alternative means of payments, including not only debit and credit cards but new payments methods such as mobile payments and central bank digital currency, a digital version of cash.…”

Obstacles of FinTech in Egyptian Bank Sector under Social Distancing

“…(Zachariadis et al,2020). According to Fu and Mishra (2020) the spread of COVID-19 and related government lockdowns have led to more than 24% increase in the relative rate of daily downloads of finance mobile applications in 74 countries. Therefore, the scope of non-human services was of interest to many business areas, such as FinTech services in banks.…”