Digital wallets will subsume paper money in 30 years: Sam Pitroda

With some five billion mobile phones in use today globally and over 10 billion credit and debit cards issued each year, tech evangelist Sam Pitroda has predicted the virtual death of paper money in 30 years thanks to innovative convergence.

"Paper money will disappear as transactions become digitised in another three decades," said the inventor of Casio Digital Diary, which was a rage in the 1980s, speaking about his latest innovation -- the "digital wallet" that uses the concept of "mobile money".

"If you can make your home and office paperless, why not banks, trade and your wallet? All transactions will be online in the future," Pitroda told IANS in an interview on his invention, now explained in the book: The March of Mobile Money: The Future of Lifestyle Management.

"Every mobile telephony service provider will embrace it. With declining average revenue per user, digital wallet could lure more subscribers who would pay more for the services offered," he said.

Full report here Economic Times