Paper money can carry the viruses and bacteria that they contract with for several days, including the deadly novel coronavirus (COVID-19), according to the World Health Organization (WHO). To take precautionary measures on the spread of the dreaded disease, the public is advised to regularly sanitize their hands whenever they are handling money, or use contactless payments instead.
Banknotes, according to the international body, may harbor the deadly virus for several days, thus have the potential to get a person infected. Studies have shown that human coronaviruses stay on the surface of paper money for as long as nine days at room temperature.
Thus, the United Nations body recommended the public to use contactless payment options to mitigate the health risks related to cash handling and the circulation of paper money. In the US, consumers are reportedly more inclined to use frictionless payments for their purchases.
In the Philippines, a more prevalent form of contactless payment is financial technology (fintech), which has been available to Filipinos for more than a decade now. Since it was introduced, fintech has allowed end-users to transact with physical and online stores through their mobile phones, providing a frictionless payments solution for transactions.