This study analyzed the relationship between digital payments and demand for cash using data from the Philippines from late 2019 to 2024. Cash demand was measured using two indicators — bank cash withdrawals from the central bank and currency in circulation to GDP ratio. We also used two measures of digital payments. First is a narrow indicator that measures person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions made through the Philippines’ QR code system. Second is a wider and more encompassing measure that includes, aside from P2P and P2M, more sophisticated and higher-value financial transactions. Using the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag method, we found evidence that (i) overall, digital payments have a negative long-run relationship with total cash demand, (ii) the wider measure of digital payments has a stronger relationship, and (iii) the relationship varies across denominations and between the two measures of cash demand.
