Last year, for the first time in almost 170 years, no bank robbery was recorded in Sweden. Given the extremely violent nature of organized crime in this Scandinavian country, which was often mentioned in recent months, the previous sentence sounds quite implausible.
However, the answer is quite simple – there is no point in robbing Swedish banks because there is no more cash in the branches and bank vaults.
Sweden is currently the most advanced country in the world when it comes to cashless payments, and Swedish banks are the leaders of that trend. Entire sectors, such as public transport, no longer accept cash at all.
In general, there is a high chance that Swedish shops, restaurants, museums, hotels, various service activities and public institutions will not accept cash, that is, that the customer will be left without goods or services if he does not have some form of digital payment.
Even the elderly no longer use cash
Even the elderly, who are considered to have a hard time accepting digital innovations, have largely stopped using cash. The share of 65- to 84-year-olds who say they used cash for their last purchase has fallen to 9 percent, down from 16 percent just two years ago. Many senior citizens are believed to have switched to digital payment with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, not everyone is enthusiastic about the cashless society. For years there has been a debate over whether it is legal to refuse cash as a means of payment. Although the law states that “banknotes and coins issued by the Riksbank are legal tender”, the former chief legal expert of the Swedish central bank, Eric Frieberg, argued for the right of merchants to refuse cash.
Apart from legal arguments, there are some more serious arguments for keeping cash in circulation. Namely, the war in Ukraine showed what kind of problems a digitalized society can find itself in when the electricity and internet suddenly go out.
A similar situation in neighboring countries
Neighboring Scandinavian countries are also seeing a trend away from cash, but they are not accepting it without reaction. In Denmark, there is a law which says that all shops with staff are obliged to accept cash, with certain exceptions at night. In Norway, the government is also proposing to tighten cash laws, Biznis Info reports.
E.Dz.
