Translator: Sebastian Betti Reviewer: Viviana Daniel
USD 207 million in cash,
two tons of paper,
that’s how they look
This amount of cash was confiscated by an anti-drug police operation
in Mexico City
and it’s one of the most deadly weapons they found there.
Normally we associate firearms with drug trafficking.
However, cash is one of the key weapons
for these criminal groups to be able to operate.
It allows them to make transactions outside the financial system
and, therefore, much less detectable to the authorities.
Cash is complicit in drug trafficking.
90% of the bills in circulation in the United States
They have detectable cocaine residues.
If they ever used dollars for a transaction,
most likely have been in contact with the drug.
Think about that.
And it’s not just for the drug trafficking that cash serves.
It makes a lot easier for different crimes.
For example, corruption.
We all want to end corruption.
However, imagine the driver of a vehicle
that is violating the speed limit.
A policeman stops him and says:
-Excuse sir, but I’m going to have to make a fine.
The driver looks for one side, looks for the other
and rehearse a version of this well-known question that,
Of course, you will never have done:
-How can we fix this problem?
The policeman looks at him and smiles kindly and says:
-But no problem!
You make me an immediate bank transfer.
Here I give my full name, my document number,
this is my account and I will quickly prepare a receipt
for an accelerated fine waiver service.
(Laughter)
No, it’s not like that, right?
Obvious that it does not happen thus.
Without cash this can not happen.
Cash is so important for this that it has become …
Think about this: in bags full of silver
They are a symbol of corruption.
However, this goes much further.
But, in addition to facilitating the crime, I want to convince them
that money is something primitive, something old, old-fashioned, a relic.
You. they know how old money is on paper,
the cash?
It was the year 1260 and Kublai Khan, grandson of the great Mongolian conqueror
Genghis Khan ascended to the throne of China.
One of the most important economic decisions
that his government took was to unify all the coins issued
by the different provinces in China and coining a single national currency.
A couple of years later,
Kublai prohibited commercial transactions in gold and silver.
In this way, for the first time in the history of the world,
a monetary system based exclusively on money on paper was created.
But how did Kublai Kan to convince his subjects to use money on paper?
Think of the money they have in their pockets.
Painted paper.
If they were not used to using it,
Would you prefer these pieces of paper instead of gold and silver?
It turns out that, in the time of Kublai Khan,
things were a little different and he had at his disposal
some policy tools
that today we do not consider quite appropriate.
(Laughter)
Of course, who was found
making transactions in gold and silver,
they killed him.
It seems that, well, quickly, money on paper
It spread throughout China.
(Laughter)
What’s more, the great adventurer, legendary Venice, Marco Polo,
he wrote a few years later, when he came to the court of Kublai Khan,
that few things had amazed him so much
in the Far East like this money on paper
spread throughout the country.
But, they say that the good is short-lived.
And with this being able to print money on paper came the temptation
to print more and more to finance the government.
This brought episodes of high inflation during the 1300s and 1400s.
Such a bard was put together that, by the year 1500, the Chinese said:
– Let’s cut it with this money on paper because it does not allow for more.
So, it took until the 19th century to reintroduce the tickets.
We’ve known this for centuries.
Printing too much to finance the government brings high inflation.
And this is not a Chinese story.
(Applause)
But is not it weird that 700 years went by and we used the same technology?
In the year 1300 we were riding in a cart.
Today we travel by plane and continue with the money on paper.
(Laughter)
You. Do you use walkman?
How many of you have seen a walkman in your life?
(Laughter)
No, having seen the movie
of “The Guardians of the Galaxy” does not count.
(Laughter)
This technology, in 30 years, was obsolete.
And we continue like Kublai Kan, with little pieces of paper.
To put this relic in perspective,
think about this: let’s send some mails, a few mails,
to different people, in different parts of the country.
Normally they press “send”, in a few seconds they are all
in the mail boxes and that’s it.
Everyone can read them.
Today we are going to do something different.
Today they are going to print those emails on paper.
A bunch of e-mails and they will distribute them.
How will they be distributed?
By truck.
What boludez! Do not?
Obviously, how are you going to do that to distribute the mails?
However, that is exactly how money travels today.
You have seen it: armored trucks, large security measures, police.
For what? To transport paper.
(Laughter)
On top of money he loves to travel.
Did you know this?
Money loves going from one end of the country to the other.
And since we are going by truck and we spend naphtha and generate pollution.
Why? The amount of tickets that are needed
in different parts of the country it varies a lot depending on the time of year.
In Mar del Plata, for example, during the summer months,
there is much, much more people than during the rest of the year.
These people are going to eat, to the movies, they go shopping.
And for all that, if you use cash, you need a lot of tickets.
Automatic tellers overflowing with twine.
Think about this: the summer is over, the people are leaving,
probably burned, much poorer, happy because they skated
all that twine and left in Mar del Plata.
Summer ends and all those bills are left over,
silver parvas in Mar del Plata.
A few months pass, July arrives and Bariloche is full of snow.
With that snow come a lot of tourists to ski,
to eat chocolate, to break some prawn in the mountain,
And they also need all those tickets.
Those that were left over in Mar del Plata.
How do those ATM tickets travel?
from Mar del Plata to the ATMs of Bariloche?
You know, by truck.
From one point to another.
And not only those big cities. Peoples
All trucks. Think: trucks from one place to another.
And this is the easiest thing.
In the most remote places of the country, how does it work?
How does it work maybe some people with more difficult access
in the north of Jujuy or in the south of Tierra del Fuego?
How does it work? Worse, how will it work?
And this affects, most of all, the poorest,
those who do not have access to financial infrastructure.
The fewer bank accounts they have,
most need to use cash in their daily lives.
And what about personal security.
The more cash they have to carry every day, the more dangerous it becomes.
I work at the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic
and we will end with the use of cash in our country.
(Applause)
Well, of course, it’s easier said than done, like everything.
However, we have done many things to go little by little
moving towards that goal.
We have made a great simplification
so they can open bank accounts much easier.
And in addition, we demand that banks provide a basic set
of financial services completely free of charge.
In this way, the more financial inclusion increases,
less essential will be to carry cash.
But this is not enough.
That’s why we created the mobile payment platform.
This platform allows you, only with a cell phone,
send silver for free and immediate, to friends, acquaintances,
and also to shops.
And the stores allow them to receive those payments
also free and immediate.
They even buy a chirimbolito, which they plug into their cell phone
and they can swipe the card.
With two cell phones, nothing more, you can, today,
make a commercial transaction.
It’s easier than sending a whatsapp.
This creates very serious problems for many people in the economy.
Imagine that you go out at night to eat with your friends and some,
that is always the same:
– Che, you know … sorry, I forgot my wallet, did you see?
– Nothing happens, you know what?
the celu sure you did not forget it.
You make me a transfer in a minute, I have the money myself.
So they ask for the second ham and red pepper pizza,
that nothing happens, there is money.
And whoever snarls always ran out of excuses.
So pay.
(Applause)
However, we have a problem to continue with this agenda
to eliminate cash:
Almost a third of the Argentine economy is in black.
If we make cash disappear suddenly,
this part of the economy would fly through the air.
And it’s something that, clearly, we do not want to do.
What else have we done to travel this road?
Perhaps, one of the most important things
is that banks do not receive more cash.
Of course, when banks need money, they come to the Central Bank
and we give them all the tickets they need.
However, when these tickets are left over, as in Mar del Plata,
they have to fix it.
The tourism agency, so that the money travels throughout the country,
which is expensive, today banks have to pay for it.
Therefore, as that is expensive, everyone is aligned today
to help in this agenda of eliminating cash.
They are coming a very big transformation, a transformation for good.
Many industries are going to have to reconvert.
For those who are paying attention,
there are going to be spectacular opportunities
to take advantage of this new, more efficient world.
Let’s leave the money in cash to Kublai Kan
and we go to the future.
Thank you.
(Applause)
USD 207 million in cash,
two tons of paper,
that’s how they look
This amount of cash was confiscated by an anti-drug police operation
in Mexico City
and it’s one of the most deadly weapons they found there.
Normally we associate firearms with drug trafficking.
However, cash is one of the key weapons
for these criminal groups to be able to operate.
It allows them to make transactions outside the financial system
and, therefore, much less detectable to the authorities.
Cash is complicit in drug trafficking.
90% of the bills in circulation in the United States
They have detectable cocaine residues.
If they ever used dollars for a transaction,
most likely have been in contact with the drug.
Think about that.
And it’s not just for the drug trafficking that cash serves.
It makes a lot easier for different crimes.
For example, corruption.
We all want to end corruption.
However, imagine the driver of a vehicle
that is violating the speed limit.
A policeman stops him and says:
-Excuse sir, but I’m going to have to make a fine.
The driver looks for one side, looks for the other
and rehearse a version of this well-known question that,
Of course, you will never have done:
-How can we fix this problem?
The policeman looks at him and smiles kindly and says:
-But no problem!
You make me an immediate bank transfer.
Here I give my full name, my document number,
this is my account and I will quickly prepare a receipt
for an accelerated fine waiver service.
(Laughter)
No, it’s not like that, right?
Obvious that it does not happen thus.
Without cash this can not happen.
Cash is so important for this that it has become …
Think about this: in bags full of silver
They are a symbol of corruption.
However, this goes much further.
But, in addition to facilitating the crime, I want to convince them
that money is something primitive, something old, old-fashioned, a relic.
You. they know how old money is on paper,
the cash?
It was the year 1260 and Kublai Khan, grandson of the great Mongolian conqueror
Genghis Khan ascended to the throne of China.
One of the most important economic decisions
that his government took was to unify all the coins issued
by the different provinces in China and coining a single national currency.
A couple of years later,
Kublai prohibited commercial transactions in gold and silver.
In this way, for the first time in the history of the world,
a monetary system based exclusively on money on paper was created.
But how did Kublai Kan to convince his subjects to use money on paper?
Think of the money they have in their pockets.
Painted paper.
If they were not used to using it,
Would you prefer these pieces of paper instead of gold and silver?
It turns out that, in the time of Kublai Khan,
things were a little different and he had at his disposal
some policy tools
that today we do not consider quite appropriate.
(Laughter)
Of course, who was found
making transactions in gold and silver,
they killed him.
It seems that, well, quickly, money on paper
It spread throughout China.
(Laughter)
What’s more, the great adventurer, legendary Venice, Marco Polo,
he wrote a few years later, when he came to the court of Kublai Khan,
that few things had amazed him so much
in the Far East like this money on paper
spread throughout the country.
But, they say that the good is short-lived.
And with this being able to print money on paper came the temptation
to print more and more to finance the government.
This brought episodes of high inflation during the 1300s and 1400s.
Such a bard was put together that, by the year 1500, the Chinese said:
– Let’s cut it with this money on paper because it does not allow for more.
So, it took until the 19th century to reintroduce the tickets.
We’ve known this for centuries.
Printing too much to finance the government brings high inflation.
And this is not a Chinese story.
(Applause)
But is not it weird that 700 years went by and we used the same technology?
In the year 1300 we were riding in a cart.
Today we travel by plane and continue with the money on paper.
(Laughter)
You. Do you use walkman?
How many of you have seen a walkman in your life?
(Laughter)
No, having seen the movie
of “The Guardians of the Galaxy” does not count.
(Laughter)
This technology, in 30 years, was obsolete.
And we continue like Kublai Kan, with little pieces of paper.
To put this relic in perspective,
think about this: let’s send some mails, a few mails,
to different people, in different parts of the country.
Normally they press “send”, in a few seconds they are all
in the mail boxes and that’s it.
Everyone can read them.
Today we are going to do something different.
Today they are going to print those emails on paper.
A bunch of e-mails and they will distribute them.
How will they be distributed?
By truck.
What boludez! Do not?
Obviously, how are you going to do that to distribute the mails?
However, that is exactly how money travels today.
You have seen it: armored trucks, large security measures, police.
For what? To transport paper.
(Laughter)
On top of money he loves to travel.
Did you know this?
Money loves going from one end of the country to the other.
And since we are going by truck and we spend naphtha and generate pollution.
Why? The amount of tickets that are needed
in different parts of the country it varies a lot depending on the time of year.
In Mar del Plata, for example, during the summer months,
there is much, much more people than during the rest of the year.
These people are going to eat, to the movies, they go shopping.
And for all that, if you use cash, you need a lot of tickets.
Automatic tellers overflowing with twine.
Think about this: the summer is over, the people are leaving,
probably burned, much poorer, happy because they skated
all that twine and left in Mar del Plata.
Summer ends and all those bills are left over,
silver parvas in Mar del Plata.
A few months pass, July arrives and Bariloche is full of snow.
With that snow come a lot of tourists to ski,
to eat chocolate, to break some prawn in the mountain,
And they also need all those tickets.
Those that were left over in Mar del Plata.
How do those ATM tickets travel?
from Mar del Plata to the ATMs of Bariloche?
You know, by truck.
From one point to another.
And not only those big cities. Peoples
All trucks. Think: trucks from one place to another.
And this is the easiest thing.
In the most remote places of the country, how does it work?
How does it work maybe some people with more difficult access
in the north of Jujuy or in the south of Tierra del Fuego?
How does it work? Worse, how will it work?
And this affects, most of all, the poorest,
those who do not have access to financial infrastructure.
The fewer bank accounts they have,
most need to use cash in their daily lives.
And what about personal security.
The more cash they have to carry every day, the more dangerous it becomes.
I work at the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic
and we will end with the use of cash in our country.
(Applause)
Well, of course, it’s easier said than done, like everything.
However, we have done many things to go little by little
moving towards that goal.
We have made a great simplification
so they can open bank accounts much easier.
And in addition, we demand that banks provide a basic set
of financial services completely free of charge.
In this way, the more financial inclusion increases,
less essential will be to carry cash.
But this is not enough.
That’s why we created the mobile payment platform.
This platform allows you, only with a cell phone,
send silver for free and immediate, to friends, acquaintances,
and also to shops.
And the stores allow them to receive those payments
also free and immediate.
They even buy a chirimbolito, which they plug into their cell phone
and they can swipe the card.
With two cell phones, nothing more, you can, today,
make a commercial transaction.
It’s easier than sending a whatsapp.
This creates very serious problems for many people in the economy.
Imagine that you go out at night to eat with your friends and some,
that is always the same:
– Che, you know … sorry, I forgot my wallet, did you see?
– Nothing happens, you know what?
the celu sure you did not forget it.
You make me a transfer in a minute, I have the money myself.
So they ask for the second ham and red pepper pizza,
that nothing happens, there is money.
And whoever snarls always ran out of excuses.
So pay.
(Applause)
However, we have a problem to continue with this agenda
to eliminate cash:
Almost a third of the Argentine economy is in black.
If we make cash disappear suddenly,
this part of the economy would fly through the air.
And it’s something that, clearly, we do not want to do.
What else have we done to travel this road?
Perhaps, one of the most important things
is that banks do not receive more cash.
Of course, when banks need money, they come to the Central Bank
and we give them all the tickets they need.
However, when these tickets are left over, as in Mar del Plata,
they have to fix it.
The tourism agency, so that the money travels throughout the country,
which is expensive, today banks have to pay for it.
Therefore, as that is expensive, everyone is aligned today
to help in this agenda of eliminating cash.
They are coming a very big transformation, a transformation for good.
Many industries are going to have to reconvert.
For those who are paying attention,
there are going to be spectacular opportunities
to take advantage of this new, more efficient world.
Let’s leave the money in cash to Kublai Kan
and we go to the future.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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