You have probably been a beneficiary of digital services during this pandemic – a trend that became a necessity as businesses and service providers pivoted to continue serving clients.

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The pivot was necessary for both sides – many people who had previously been apprehensive about using digital services also embraced the mindset change and accepted that digital was the way to go.

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But in the absence of face-to-face or physical services, how has “speed money” fared? That’s when adequate incentives are given to the service provider to speed up services that tend to be extremely slow – and the incentive is usually in the form of cash payments.

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Let’s take the following experience as an example:

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Recently, we needed to renew a formal document. In the old days, the norm was for the forms to be purchased, and subsequently filled out by a few service providers (for a fee).

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Meanwhile, photographs would have to be taken by another service provider before you are able to get in the queue. (If you wanted to get ahead in the queue, that required another fee.) On top of that, all these services could be sped up with extra “speed money”.

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With digitalisation, all the steps in the process have moved online, including making the appointment, downloading the forms and uploading your photographs.

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Therefore, the service providers who used to mill about in these offices are now without any prospects of earning money. Or at least, that is what we thought.

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However, upon entering the office, the requirement was to show a printout of your digital appointment. This took us aback; we were under the assumption that we would be able to walk in with our digital appointment notification on our mobile phone.

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After all, that was what the online guidance had informed us, and on top of that, the digital format worked just fine when it came to validating our vaccination status in order to enter.

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However, instead of being able to show your online appointment on the phone, visitors were required to go to the small shop next door to print out their appointment on a single piece of paper.

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The cost of the printout was RM1.50, and no receipt was given (despite the request). The piece of paper with the digital appointment was then given to the person minding the door. No printout, no entry.

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Following that, you would be asked to join the queue to the front desk, which then asked you to show your digital appointment on the phone, and write down your name and phone number in a list containing all the appointments of that day. Interestingly, this office had no hand sanitiser or a thermometer for visitors, which is a required SOP for all offices, what more an agency issuing documents.

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While sitting in the waiting area, the RM1.50 was a nagging thought. At an estimate, there could be at least 350 people visiting the office every day for new documents, more once Covid-19 restrictions are eased.

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With 350 people per day, at RM1.50 per person and approximately 25 working days a month, this could come up to RM13,125 per month for the little shop next to that office. During peak periods, this could potentially go up to 700 new documents per day, which means a doubling of profits to a total of RM26,250 a month.

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In the midst of doing these calculations, we went through the final stages in the application process, which was the submission of our digital photograph, and the payment for the document, where a debit or credit card was now accepted.

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There is actually no need for any cash to exchange hands in this entire process.

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As services and products increasingly move into the digital space, we now see a corresponding pushback against digitalisation. After all, although the need for physical cash has been eliminated, the people who find ways to make “speed money” will always be around.