Cash in a Careless System – the Experience of Gen Z

Pascal Wicht presented SICPA’s research on Gen Z at the Future of Cash. The title of the presentation was ‘Cash in a Careless System – Reframing Value, Autonomy and Resilience’. And it was a thought-provoking presentation.

Gen Z are people born between 1997 and 2012, sometimes referred to as the ‘Hunger Games’ or ‘Squid Games’ generation. A quarter of people alive today are Gen Z, and most of those live in the global south (90%).

• 59% of them live in urban or semi-urban environments, the remainder in rural areas
• Only 13% live in the ‘West’
• The informal economy makes up 73.5% of employment in the world.

Gen Z share attitudes and digital habits wherever they are from. One attribute is that they regards the world as being hostile to them. Gen Z’s attitudes and behaviour are primarily shaped by unequal access to opportunity rather than technology itself.