By
Darya Rudz
August 17th, 2023
A recent Future of Money survey demonstrated that one in three Australians would prefer Bitcoin and other innovative financial technologies to their banks.
In April, Fair Go Finance of Australia, a specialist online personal loan provider, conducted a Bitcoin survey during “The Future of Money” event which was attended by various financial experts. A few days ago, the results of the survey completed by 3,148 people were made available to the public.
So, the first question of the survey was “Do you know anything about Bitcoin?” The response was quite clear: 34% said Yes and 66% said No.
The survey starts to be really interesting when it comes to the representation of the sexes. It’s known that finance is mostly dominated by males. Moreover, Bitcoin is even criticized to be a male-centric system. Still, there are very powerful females who work in this sector.
However, the survey shows that in Australia there isn’t such a big gap between men and women in terms of knowledge about Bitcoin. Of all surveyees, 43% of male participants stated they knew about Bitcoin, whereas 28% of females have heard of Bitcoin. On the other hand, 72% of females and 57% of male surveyees had never heard of Bitcoin before.
Another fintech-related question was “What do you think is the best feature of digital money/financial technology?” 70% of surveyees said that the level of convenience offered for 24/7 access was quite important; 15% said it helped them control their finances and 12% said it was safer than having their cash on them; 2% of participants considered digital currency too risky.
The next question was about those who told the surveyees about digital money and fintech. 51% discovered everything doing their own research online, 26% of participants answered ‘friends/family’, 13% said that it was their bank/finance provider, 4% learnt about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from colleagues, 4% of surveyees didn’t manage to name the best source for this information, and 2% told ‘no one – I’m not interested’.
As for the big question, “Would you change banks or financial providers for better services with digital money or financial technology?”, the responses were balanced. 36% said they would move from their current bank to use digital currency systems; 35% said they would not; and 29% of participants said they were unsure.
Fair Go Finance commented the results of the survey:
“The Bitcoin story continues to unfold and while Cryptocurrencies haven’t had as much traction in Australia, it is encouraging to hear support from the likes of Commonwealth Bank which seems to be embracing, if not pioneering the shift here. That said, there is still a lack of awareness in Australia as only 34% of Australians in our survey indicated they were aware of Bitcoin. There has been a lot of expectation, or perhaps pressure, put on cryptocurrencies for 2015 so it will be interesting to see where we end up. Nevertheless, the continued attention and focus on Fintech will be very beneficial to the industry.”
Well, Australians appear to be ready to control their funds using digital currency more than ever before. The free market may decide how soon this becomes a reality, but according to this “Future of Money” survey, Australians have a high amount of interest in using a more convenient form of payment such as Bitcoin in the future.
