Getting rid of cash is an alluring prospect.   First off, cash is filthy. A recent study done by New York University’s Center for Genomics and Systems Biology showed that cash is full of bacteria – including the “bacteria related to pneumonia, food poisoning, gastric ulcers and staph infections.”

Cash is expensive to make. Think of the cost of the machinery upkeep, the materials and more to create each coin and paper dollar. In addition, criminals love cash according to Mashable. And the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) says that bank robberies accounted for $30 million in theft in 2011, a figure that doesn’t include insurance fees or the 100 deaths or injuries that were related to those robberies that year. It might also put a dent in tax evasion, which has costs governments across the world as much as $3.1 billion annually.

Small businesses have more trouble with virtual currrency and the apps, cards and other forms of lectronic currency.  A study by LexisNexis and Javelin Strategy & Research discovered that smaller mobile merchants — small businesses that accept at least one type of payment through either mobile browsers, mobile applications or mobile point-of-sale systems — rely on fewer fraud-prevention solutions, meaning they are often more exposed to deceptive schemes.