The truth is that our wealth, either in cash, digital money or possessions have, and always will be, a target for the dishonest.
The difference between cash under the mattress and in the electronic bank system, is that if stolen the latter can usually be traced up to a point of it disappearing across the world. But then, unlike cash, if the holder of that money has not been stupid and ignored the ways of properly protecting themselves during the transaction, the bank system will often agree to reimburse the lost cash because their security systems have failed to act when it is obvious a fraudulent act has happened.
With the cash under the mattress, valuable jewellery, gold, art work, etc stored in the home, once it’s stolen it is 99% certain to be untraceable and therefore unrecoverable. It is then you down to the mercy and small print of your insurance policies!
From a commercial point of view, it is far easier and safer to handle digital transactions rather than cash. I remember the days when in our retail company we were handling 100’s of thousands of pounds in purely cash, which had to be kept secure at our stage in the handling process, until some security firm like Securicor collected the money for banking. Even then, the risks of a armed robbery was high, as indeed the banks used to experience themselves.
Before the days of Securicor collection, retail managers had to travel to the bank with thousands of pounds, in cash, on them………..!,
So, although there are the understandable concerns about the banking systems to handle our wealth securely, on balance the digital system is superior to the previous cash only system of yesterday. How many times do we now hear of the “police officer instruction” scams where a poor sole is duped into withdrawing large sums of CASH for a courier to collect and “make safe”? Still it is mainly when an individual holds sums of money in cash that it is hugely at risk of it being taken and disappearing into the mist. So in summary, I would suggest that with the digital systems our wealth is far more secure overall than ever before.