Italy Registers a Boost in Cryptocurrencies and Other Digital Payments

The research shows that although electronic payments are increasing in Italy, 11% of the inhabitants do not yet have a bank account, nor do they have payment instruments such as credit or debit cards. This is a record for Italy, which in this case has a higher percentage than France and the United Kingdom, where 6% of the population does not have bank accounts or cards, but also Nigeria (5%) and South Africa (4 percent).

The other side of this medal is that in Italy cash is used more than in the other countries examined by the research: one Italian out of three in fact claims to use it on most occasions (34%), while the percentage drops by 21% in France and 24 percent in the UK.

Furthermore, given a scale from 0 to 10 to measure their confidence in the guarantee of money in stock with banks, 19 percent of the sample expressed a vote between zero and four.

5 Needs of Divisibility

To increase the perception of security, Bitcoin represents a logical evolution of money, since it satisfies the five needs of divisibility, scarcity, durability, transferability and fungibility, and is also able to adapt to the "digital" world.  

The last decade has seen a huge increase in the number of electronic payments, either through contactless cards, cryptocurrency, smartphone apps or through digital banking. The practicality and speed that this allows, offers enormous benefits to both resellers and customers, for whom it is more efficient.

However, digital payments are still vulnerable to fraud, regardless of whether they are the result of theft, hacking, and so on. Cryptocurrency is money built for the digital age and overcomes many of the limitations of money as we know it. It is a square peg in a square hole, with safety incorporated in it also in terms of design.