Opinion I Two typhoons just exposed how brittle our cashless future really is (Globe and Mail, Print and Online)

“In the hardest-hit provinces, millions of people lost electricity, internet access and mobile connectivity. Point-of-sale machines flickered off. ATMs froze. E-wallets, used by the majority of Filipinos, became useless icons on dead phone screens. The timing could not have been worse as roads were flooded, drinking water was scarce, and storms had wiped out most of the food supplies. People had money; some had lots of it. They just had no way to spend it.

This is the unspoken risk of a cashless economy. The more we rely on digital payments, the more a hurricane, heat wave, or grid failure becomes not just an environmental disaster but a financial one. When China’s Hainan province was hit by Typhoon Yagi, the strongest storm in Asia in 2024, videos of disaster survivors desperate to charge their dead cellphones went viral, with the sentiment that without their phones, “You can’t even buy bread.””