Four out of ten Swedes never use cash

Published 9 October 2024 at 11.55

Domestic. The use of cash in physical points of sale is at an all-time low. A large percentage of Swedes never use cash these days, and half of the merchants do not accept the means of payment. At the same time, just over one in ten Swedes only use their mobile phone to pay. That's according to Net's new report on payments in physical environments.

Share the article

TwittraShare

– Sweden is among the countries with the lowest cash usage in the world, which has both advantages and disadvantages. As consumers use cash less and less, more and more merchants choose to stop accepting it as a means of payment. The number of ATMs has also decreased, which also affects the availability of cash, says Louise Richardson, head of Sweden at Nets.

According to a new survey by Sifo/Kantar, four out of ten Swedes never use cash as a means of payment. However, this is a decrease since last year (46%). Compared to our neighboring countries, Norway is at roughly the same level, while the percentage is significantly lower in Denmark and especially Finland (11%).

However, one in ten Swedes uses cash at least once a week, and a couple of percent actually prefer the means of payment within the various types of points of sale, i.e. both shops, grocery stores, restaurants and cafes, transport and service points.

Of the Swedes who use cash, almost half do so because they think it is important to have cash around. There is also a majority who think cash is important, while just under half do not think so. Furthermore, Swedes' belief in a completely cashless society has decreased in recent years, and the fact is that this opinion is stronger in Norway, which also has legislation on cash.

According to a new survey by Norstat among Swedish traders, just under half of the various points of sale (48%) state that they accept cash. However, there may be some within the statistics who believe that consumers never pay with cash. The transport category pulls the average down considerably, but so do places of service (29%) and restaurants and cafes (43%). On the other hand, eight out of ten grocery stores state that they accept cash.

A considerable number of merchants also state that they will definitely stop accepting cash (30%). The reason is mainly security reasons (70%), but also because handling is complicated (46%) and because of the costs (35%).

– When it comes to accepting cash, Swedish merchants are the ones who do this the least in the Nordics, and probably in the world. This simplifies life for merchants by eliminating the need for cash handling, which in turn reduces the risk of robbery and leads to reduced costs, says Louise Richardson in a press release.

At the same time, card use is almost total – only two percent of Swedes never use the payment method. The share of contactless payments of all card payments has also increased dramatically in recent years. Since the beginning of 2020, when the percentage was around 40 percent – and which increased sharply due to the pandemic and when the amount limit was raised – this has now more than doubled to over 90 percent. It is roughly as high as in Denmark and Norway.

More and more people are also using mobile payments. Eight out of ten Swedes use the payment method at physical points of sale, and 14 percent only use this for their payments. However, Denmark is the leader in the Nordics, where the corresponding figures are nine out of ten and one in five who only use mobile payments.