Will Sweden Be the First Country to Get Rid of Cash?

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When I lived in Sweden 3 years ago (I can’t believe it has been that long already!), I remember a “betala med kort” campaign that we got in the mail in Skellefteå.

The campaign read that it is better to NOT have cash on you. With cash, you are more vulnerable to theft. Pay with your card instead and lower crime. Apparently, 5 banks started this campaign around Christmas time in 2005. I lived in Sweden from 2010 to 2012.

betala-med-kort
Foto: björn linDAHL

I thought this was very interesting, and I have already told people that Sweden will probably be one of the first countries to get rid of cash and go completely to digital payments.

How does it look so far? Well, 8 out of 10 shops and restaurants take cards, and many shops are completely cash free already. This is all without passing legislation.

Denmark is looking to pass some legislation this summer that gives shops and restaurants the right to refuse cash, and people are saying that they may be the first country to go digital in the money department.

However, Sweden is way ahead of the game, in my opinion. Even their online banking is amazing for paying digitally.

SwedBank has an amazing system for purchasing items online. You basically generate a credit card with as much limit as you want on it. So if you are purchasing items for $48, you can create a card for $48 that expires in 3 months. This way, if someone steals your information, the card will already have reached the limit. Genius!

According to Aftonbladet, 95% of payments are already done by credit card.  It is one thing to pass legislation. It is another to have your society naturally move in that direction.

What do you think? Will Sweden be the first cashless country? Is that a good thing or does that terrify you?

4 thoughts on “Will Sweden Be the First Country to Get Rid of Cash?”

  1. Is cashless better than using your card for any payment? Well in the business world it is normal to do all purchases and sales by means of bank transfers, not necessarily that means credit card payments. So in my line of business, i can say that i am already cashless a long long time ago! However, small companies that start accepting card payments will realize that a card payment in a shop is very very very costly, it costs between 3 and 10 (!!!)% of any transaction, especially when it is just 10 or 20 SEK. So realize that going to cashless will put a burden on prices, it sounds all so good, but there are a few big companies that make lots of many by just being the intermediate card accepting company, so between the shop and the bank of this shop. This comes because in Sweden banks donot want to install the bank card readers and do the transaction. In other EU countries the banks do this, so the costs of card payments is considerably lower!

    Reply
    • Very true! However if taking cards is so normal, shops can simply raise their prices to adjust for the cost. It may be harder in larger cities than in smaller towns to do this because of competition. Great points Patrick, thanks for sharing!

      Reply
  2. Currently in Sweden. Need to use the toilet at the bus station? Pay by text. Parking? Pay by text. Need to give someone some money? Swish it on your phone. Need a bus ticket? Pay by text. I’ve been living in Sweden for 4 years and I can’t remember the last time I paid for anything by cash in my everyday life. The bank allows me to do pretty much everything digitally. Some concerns with all of this are the security of my data and the impact it has on tourists. Many systems need you to have Swedish phone numbers, or to have accounts set up in advance. This can cause problems even if you just visit a different region of the country, never mind if you are from overseas. One other personal issue I have is that by not using cash it means I pay less attention to the exact amount I am spending. I can see how it is so easy to overspend in Sweden (and there are huge amounts of debt in this country). It also has implications for the populations maths ability as handling money is often people’s first experience of dealing with numbers.

    Reply

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