EU Member States Move Towards a Cashless Future

By Florian Winkler, COO and Co-founder of VitraCash]

The global shift towards a cashless economy has been in progress for more than a decade. The start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the push for contactless payment methods triggered an even faster increase in digital payments and mobile wallet usage.

Whilst usage is on the rise, uptake across EU Member States hasn’t been uniform. According to MerchantSavvy.co.uk, mobile wallet transactions are expected to increase to $708 billion by 2025, up from $188 billion in 2020. We’re going to analyse the difference in uptake across the EU and what consumers can expect when checking out at tills across Europe.

Who is leading the ‘Cashless Revolution’ in Europe?

2020 brought physical in-person shopping experiences to a halt and created unforeseen demand in e-commerce volume. Between 2016 – 2020, the European eCommerce market grew 14% annually, and it’s projected to have an average annual growth of 10.1% through 2024.

With the marked increase in eCommerce transactions and the decrease in physical store shopping comes the inevitable growth of contact-free payment solutions. Debit cards, smartphones and wearable devices can all constitute as contact-free payment solutions, and one nation is leading the way in Europe with their widespread usage – Norway.

Ranked 7th globally, according to World Bank data and research conducted by Norges Bank, 98% of Norwegian citizens own a debit card, and less than 4% of the country’s transactions are done using traditional cash payments.

Following close behind Norway are Switzerland (ranked 9th globally), with Finland rounding out the top 10. Like Norway, over 98% of the Finnish population owns a debit card and the country is well-known for its use of digital payment methods. In Switzerland, over 60% of the population use digital payment options, and the contactless payment limit is set at 80 Swiss francs, which makes shopping incredibly convenient.

Slower on the Uptake of the Digital Financial Revolution

On the other end of the spectrum, we can see countries like Austria, Germany and Romania are slower to adopt the cash-free financial future. A 2021 study by Klarna, found that populations in these three countries still prefer using cash over debit cards and other contactless options.

In Austria specifically, paying by smartphone is quite uncommon with only 7% of the population saying they’d use their smartphone to pay for goods. Using wearable devices is even rarer. Whilst the numbers aren’t as low in Germany, only 9% of the population said they would consider using a smartphone to pay for transactions.

For consumers living in or travelling to these countries, it’s important to note that because of the slow adoption of cash-free transactions, they may experience difficulty finding stores that offer this payment method – and hitting the ATM for cash may be more than that bit of nostalgia.

Contactless and Digital – Why Some Countries Prefer to Rely on Cash

The digital revolution has been gaining traction for many years, but why are some advanced countries lagging behind when it comes to using these payment methods? We’ve pinned it down to a few key points:

• Computer/Mobile Device Literacy – consumers who aren’t as tech-savvy as the younger generation may shy away or distrust using these devices to share their financial information to make payments.
• Access – this is multi-faceted. In some countries, the digital infrastructure cannot support the widespread use of digital payment methods, making them unable to offer them to consumers. Additionally, vulnerable people who have no access to contactless debit cards or mobile devices will still rely on cash to make their purchases.
• Instability and Cyber-attacks – very valid reasons for not adopting digital payment strategies. With the reliance on digital payments, countries are subject to glitches and outages that could cause frustration with consumers. Additionally, the steady increase of cyber-attacks on businesses globally makes consumers concerned about the theft of their data leading to online fraud.
• Money management – swiping your debit card and dabbing your smart device are incredibly convenient ways to pay – but for those who aren’t savvy at money management, this could be a worry. Some consumers find using cash an easier way to manage their money.

Whilst the impact on physical transactions from COVID-19 is waning, the adoption of digital payments and contactless options isn’t. According to World Pay Global, through 2024, we’ll continue to see a marked increase in the use of digital wallets, with cash rapidly declining even in countries that’ve been slow to adopt these payment methods in the past.

For governments, digital transformations are a no brainer. With digital paper trails combatting tax fraud and money laundering and reduced cash flow hindering non-financial crimes, expect to see further adoption of digital payments into the future, with cash-less economics expanding outside Nordic countries.

There has been a wave of innovation in regard to digital payments to coincide with the uptake in cashless economy, so it will be interesting to examine how the fintech sector will evolve to meet this global pivot away from physical money.