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The Swiss are increasingly making cashless payments. Nevertheless, cash is still important – especially when cash registers are on strike.
On Monday morning, there were technical problems with Coop’s payment system. Customers could no longer pay for their purchases with Twint or most credit and debit cards. If you didn’t want to go home with empty shopping bags, you had to pay in cash or with a Postcard. Coop was only able to rectify the fault the following day.
The incident shows how dependent trade is on digital means of payment. This dependency has grown steadily in recent years. “The trend will clearly be towards less cash. People are increasingly shopping online. Mobile payment is also increasing,” says Tobias Trütsch. He researches payment transactions at the University of St. Gallen.
Corona inspires contactless payment
According to Trütsch’s surveys, mobile payment, debit and credit cards have gained in importance in recent years. The value of cash, on the other hand, has declined.
«Cash is second only to the debit card. Around a third of all payments are made in cash,” says Trütsch. However, the use of cash has been steadily declining for around 30 years. The corona pandemic in particular has given cashless means of payment a boost.
In a European comparison, Switzerland is relatively far ahead. Trütsch observes that cashless payments are particularly common in Nordic countries. In southern European countries such as Italy, Spain or France, mobile phones and plastic cards are used less at the checkout.
The reasons for the boom in digital payment methods in Switzerland during the pandemic were the corona measures, explains economist Trütsch. “People have increasingly made contactless payments with cards or cell phones. So cash has been pushed back.” In the meantime, the use of cash has stabilized.
Fewer people carry cash with them
The importance of cash has decreased significantly compared to before. This is also shown by a survey by Moneyland. Accordingly, those surveyed can do without cash rather than plastic cards.
Not everyone has cash on them anymore. One in seven people – around 15 percent – does not carry cash in their wallets, as the “Swiss Payment Monitor” shows. 39 percent of those surveyed stated that they did not keep any cash at home either.
The use of cash will continue to decrease in the future, but will not disappear entirely, says economist Trütsch. “Cash is indispensable for most Swiss people. Around 85 percent of the population cannot imagine a world without cash.” There will always be people – especially older people – who want to continue paying with banknotes and coins, he says.