In a world suffering a pandemic, cash is no longer king.

A growing number of businesses and individuals worldwide have stopped using banknotes in fear that physical currency, handled by tens of thousands of people over their useful life, could be a vector for the spreading the coronavirus.

While public officials and health experts have said that the risk to transfer the virus person-to-person through the use of banknotes is small, it has not stopped businesses from refusing to accept currency and some countries from urging their citizens to stop using banknotes altogether.