Money does not have to be in notes and coins. It can be in form of an account balance, an ATM card, or a Mobile Money balance.

The era of paperless money has transformed how we view business and how we can move money from one place to another.

Today, if you relative in Gisensyi needs twenty thousand freaks to pay a medical bill, you don’t need to travel there and in process waste a full day, transport and additional costs associated with travel to Kigali in order to take the money.

All you need to do is walk to a mobile money agent and send the money at a very minimum fee. That signifies that in this era of people being so busy with work and their lives, their families, technology has made it easy to handle money.

We do not need to carry money around anymore and risk losing it to thieves, we just have to carry an ATM card and dispense money from the nearest ATM Machine. We do not have to keep money under the mattress or buried in the garden because there is a bank that can do just that, very well.

It is not just ATM cards or our phones, so are cheques. All these aim at making sure that we avoid the risk of carrying money around, which could be lost, misplaced, misused or damaged.

Paperless transactions offer us the opportunity to handle money without worry. For example, one can shop with credit cards or debit cards to enjoy similar benefits.

Some fuel companies now allow customers to buy fuel with automated cards which eliminate the use of paper money and offer the benefits of control of fuel usage and fuel dispensed.

However, care should be taken while using paperless services. For example, ATM cards usually attract a fee and withdrawing five thousand shillings ten times in a week might cost you ten thousand shillings if each transaction is worth two hundred francs.

Therefore the number of transactions made reflect on the account balance. Similarly, for credit cards, one uses money that is essentially borrowed and attracts interest.

Hence, one should be careful when spending other people’s money because at the end of the day it has repercussions on your financial health. Many a people have been driven to bankruptcy by reckless use of credit cards.

Financial discipline that one would impose on use of paper money should apply on paperless money transactions.

Paperless money more than other things helps one to keep track of their expenditure. One can get a bank statement which details specific expenditures hence helping one to control their expenditure by highlighting the money ‘leaks’ in one’s budget.

Ends