Me and Cashback: a complicated week ends

Seven days ago exactly what would have been the week of the State Cashback. A race that shouldn't have been: what was not intended as a Click Day turned out to be yet another half misstep with malfunctions and problems also manifested in the IO application closely linked to the initiative.

A week of Cashback and the peak of the IO app

The reason for the crash is well explained by the graph below which depicts the trend of downloads: we reached 872.892 in the single day of Tuesday 8 December and a total share that today stands at just over 8.8 million (6.1 million on Android and 2.7 million on iOS). Consequently, the connections to IO for the addition of payment methods through which to accrue the 10% refund were concentrated in a few hours (up to 6,000 every second), sending the infrastructure into crisis.



The trend of authentication to the app via SPID and Electronic Identity Card is very similar.



Once the enormous amount of requests has been disposed of, everything seems to be working as evidenced by the appearance of the statement of expenses related to Cashback. Remember that it can take up to 72 hours before you see them in the app.



So, success or failure? Neither one nor the other. The difficulties encountered were at least partly predictable and avoidable (the possibility of registering for Cashback less than 24 hours from the start of the initiative was perhaps not the happiest of ideas) and the effectiveness of the measure can only be measured over time.

We remind you that the goal is twofold: on the one hand to encourage citizens to use digital payments by allowing them to become familiar with the tools, on the other to get rid of cash even for small daily expenses by contributing thus to deal a significant blow to the scourge of tax evasion which inevitably ends up weighing on the public coffers and on everyone's pockets.

Source: IO