Four out of five purchases in Sweden are paid electronically or by debit card and with the development of cheaper technology the trend is moving towards a fully cash free society, according to a new report.<\/p>\n
“Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia leads the world in terms of cashless trading,” said Bengt Nilervall at the Swedish Federation of Trade (Svensk Handel).<\/p>\n
Swedes use their debit and credit cards almost every day – an average of 260 transactions per person per year.<\/p>\n
The picture is very different in southern Europe. In Italy, for example, three-quarters of all consumer purchases are still paid for in cash.<\/p>\n
“That is due to the low confidence in the authorities and the banking system,” said Niklas Arvidsson, an associate professor of industrial dynamics.<\/p>\n
Arvidsson argued that Sweden could become completely cash free but predicts that this development is unlikely until at least 2030.<\/p>\n
“The familiarity of cash in the hand could prevent this. A recent Sifo survey showed that 2\/3 people consider (the availability of) cash to be a human right,” he said.<\/p>\n
Retailers, banks and card companies welcomed the trend with the proviso that customers are able to keep up with developments.<\/p>\n
A cash free society would lead to increased security for both staff and customers and would cut cash-handling costs – estimated to be around 8.7 billion kronor ($1.2 billion), some 0.3% of GDP.<\/p>\n
Armed robberies are furthermore in decline in line with the reduction of cash use. In 2012, a mere five bank robberies were committed, according to the Swedish Bankers’ Association – the lowest figure in 30 years.<\/p>\n
The spread of cards and electronic payments has had a profound effect even on the street level with fruit and veg traders and even retailers of the homeless magazine Situation Stockholm accepting card payments.<\/p>\n
The spread of electronic payment systems such as Swish are a further addition to the plethora of alternatives for people to transfer small sums without having to resort to the ATM.<\/p>\n
And even though cash may be dying out in Sweden, the government has announced that a new range of bank notes will hit circulation in 2015. Take a look through the new designs here.<\/p>\n
Source: The Local<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four out of five purchases in Sweden are paid electronically or by debit card and with the development of cheaper technology the trend is moving towards a fully cash free society, according to a new report. “Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia leads the world in terms of cashless trading,” said Bengt Nilervall at the … Continue reading “The cashless society arrives”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[31,10257,10258,6330,10255,10259,10261,10260,10256],"class_list":["post-16385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-armed-robbery","tag-cash","tag-cashless-society","tag-credit-cards","tag-debit-cards","tag-electronic-payments","tag-industrial-dynamics","tag-sweden-scandinavia","tag-visa"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16386,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16385\/revisions\/16386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}