Is the global economy slowing because of digitalization?

Leonid Bershidsky is puzzled why, "Cash remains king in the digital age?" In a paper presented to the European Parliament, Daniel Gros found it a "mystery" that cash-to-economic output ratio is increasing. One explanation could be that people are hoarding cash to avoid negative interest rate in the Eurozone but that is contradicted by the fact that the expansion is not in 500 Euro notes but in the much smaller 50 Euro notes. The informal economy is shrinking everywhere. In Japan cash to GDP ratio is the highest while its informal economy is the smallest, at 10% of GDP. Cashless transactions increased to $617 billion last year, from $60 billion in 2010. We are told that complete elimination of cash will reduce crime and make us safer. Actually criminals will surely find other ways of transferring money while ordinary people will lose their privacy completely. Digital transactions are much more expensive. If a thing costs Rs 100 you pay the exact amount if you pay in cash, which enforces discipline. Banks charge a yearly fee on credit and debit cards and the government charges a hefty 18% tax on interest on outstanding credit card debt. Possibly why thrifty Germans prefer to use cash. It also gives complete information on our spending behavior to authorities. Probability of confronting a dreaded criminal is remote for ordinary citizens but the government is an ever present menace in our lives. The British government claims to lose as much as 6.2 billion pounds per year because it is unable to collect taxes on cash transactions. The British government provides social services, such as old age pension, unemployment benefits and free healthcare, for all its citizens, while the Indian government provides handouts only to the 'vote bank' and to politicians, leaving taxpayers to fend for themselves. We are told that cash is unsafe because it is easily stolen, but our loss is limited to what is stolen, whereas hackers can clean out our bank accounts if they gain access. Also, a thief has to come close to steal cash, while a hacker sitting in Ukraine can transfer money from bank accounts in India. Last year hackers gained access to 20,000 accounts in Tesco Bank in the UK. Indian banks have no protection whatsoever, so information on bank accounts can be easily bought. The risks of digital transactions are almost infinite, with hackers inventing new weapons daily. The Reserve Bank has at last woken up to the threat and has made banks responsible for cyber theft, but we can expect banks to create as many hurdles as possible to prevent compensating customers. Our government wants to collect data on citizens to enhance its powers, while it has made political funding more opaque, to avail of criminal funding. They should remember that the US government is monitoring their bank accounts, so maybe we will find out what the villains are up to. Is digitalization the reason slowing of the global economy? Economists should study whether there is any relation.