Sound Money: Sensory Infrastructure for Inclusive Digital Payments

Mac Milin Kiran Cherry Wu
September 22, 2025

Disclaimer: This policy brief has been reviewed by the Future of Digital Finance conference organizers but has not been through CIGI’s formal editing process.

Confirmation cues — audio, haptic, spoken and visual — are core infrastructure; fragmentation across apps and borders makes “your money moved” non-portable, undermining trust and excluding first-time digital users in cash-intensive economies. Evidence from India, China and Kenya shows single-modality cues are fragile and social fit matters; systems need redundant, recognizable signals that travel across devices, languages and settings. Authorities should adopt a minimal, open Multisensory Trust Stack, require redundancy proven in real-world conditions and constrain voice with privacy by design and anti-spoofing safeguards. Adoption should be scaled through procurement-led specifications and lightweight conformance tests, ensuring confirmation performance is measurable domestically and cross-border.