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Philippines government to use cashless payment cards
31 Oct 2011

The UK coalition may wish to follow in the footsteps of the government in the Philippines, which has revealed it will use cashless smart cards to buy office supplies in the near future.

It is looking to remove the use of cash to purchase such equipment by the end of 2011, Radyo Inquirer 990AM reports.

Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management Florencio Abad suggested that the move away from cash would cut down on the number of "kickbacks" when buying items from office suppliers.

He also hinted that government agencies throughout the country could make savings of up to 40 per cent through the adoption of the scheme.

The cashless payment industry is set to be boosted by the emergence of near field communication (NFC) technology, Juniper Research recently noted.

It is expecting global mobile transactions to surpass the $170 billion (£110 billion) mark by 2015, as more people use their PCs to search for cheap goods before paying for them with their NFC-capable handset.