As someone who got lost two miles into a local Treasure Hunt I'm probably not the best qualified person to talk about a race across South East Asia, but this is no ordinary race. The Money 20/20 race will set five competitors representing different payment methods a range of challenges as they make their way from Hong Kong to Singapore. The 'catch' is that they can only make purchases using their allocated payment mechanism.
In the previous races (Toronto to Las Vegas and London to Copenhagen) there have been a number of innovative transactions that have involved gifts from Facebook friends, the use of intermediaries and barter. At Glory we believe our 'runner' will have a more straightforward trip as cash is pretty much accepted everywhere.
Of course, there are precedents. In 1873. Jules Verne wrote 'Around the World in Eighty Days' in which Phileas Fogg completed the journey using a suitcase containing twenty thousand pounds in cash. The other thing in our favour is the long history of cash in the region. According to Glyn Davies in 'The History of Money', paper notes were first introduced in China in the reign of Hien Tsung (806-821 AD) because there was a shortage of copper for coinage.
So what sort of reception will our 'runner' expect? Experience shows that he may be at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to ordering rooms and transport over the phone or online but he should have no issues when it comes to face to face payments and he should never be short of food. There's no denying there have been major changes in China in the past few years. Indeed, the country now has a 42 percent share of world e-commerce transactions, with Alipay and Tenpay leading the way. In September China Daily reported that 14 percent of people carry no cash. The positive news is that our competitor will be among the 86 percent who still feel it necessary to carry notes and coins! Meanwhile, in the destination country Singapore, according to an article in the Straits Times (2 September 2017) despite attempts to encourage cashless payments, 'SMEs say adopting cashless payments is costly and they are still not widely accepted'. Meanwhile, Paypal research shows that 90 percent of consumers prefer cash as the primary method of transactions. Even with very high levels of smartphone ownership, only 38 percent would be comfortable using a phone to make payments and traders fear a QR code system would slow down transactions (channel news Asia 1 November 2017).
It's sure to be an entertaining occasion and we'll follow all the participants with interest.
Of course, there is no long tradition of payment races, it was never an Olympic sport, but what a fascinating event early payment races could have been.
I have in front of me a set of cigarette cards (issued by Stephen Mitchell & Son in 1913) that itemised early forms of money.
Amongst the items used have been cowrie shells, knives, spear heads, iron bars, porcelain, wampum, cloth and (a personal favourite) whales' teeth.
Now what a race that would have been. Move overJules Verne, I feel a film script coming on.
