As anyone who has visited Japan knows, cash is still king.
Even though many places now take credit cards, Apple Pay and other forms of cashless technology, the actual amount of banknotes and coins circulating in the country has doubled in 20 years, and that was while the economy and population have shrunk.
More than ¥101 trillion (US$965 billion) of cash was circulating at the end of last month, and used for more than 80 percent of transactions by value in 2014.
One problem with this preference for banknotes and coins is that it limits the Bank of Japan’s policy options. The tendency of Japanese to prefer cash means that any attempt to further lower negative interest rates or to impose them on private bank accounts might push people to take their money from the banking system and add it to their stash under the mattress.
The decision in Europe to stop printing the 500 euro banknote prompted concerns that governments were trying to make it harder to hold cash, and thus make it easier to impose deeper negative interest rates.
In Sweden, where the vast majority of payments do not use cash and many bank branches will not even accept cash deposits and withdrawals, the central bank last year argued that negative rates function better in a cashless society.
Rates are minus-0.5 percent in Sweden, but that is not an option in Japan, which “is a cash-based economy,” former Bank of Japan board member Sayuri Shirai said.
The Bank of Japan could maybe cut the negative interest rate from the current minus-0.1 percent to minus-0.2 percent or minus-0.3 percent at most, she said earlier this month.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained