In Papua New Guinea, distance from bank branches and other financial services can shape access to cash. Mobile transfers and agent networks offer ways to bridge that distance. But a message saying that money has arrived does not put banknotes in someone’s hand. An agent may need enough cash on site to pay out the transfer, and a recipient may have to look elsewhere if that cash is unavailable. Any particular queue described in the underlying candidate still needs evidence of its place and date. The wider insight is that digitisation does not necessarily abolish waiting. A transaction can be complete on a screen while remaining unfinished in the physical world.