Liz Alderman writes in the NYT that bills and coins now represent just 2 percent of Sweden's economy,
compared with 7.7 percent in the United States and 10 percent in the
euro area and this year only about 20 percent of all consumer payments
in Sweden have been made in cash, compared with an average of 75 percent
in the rest of the world.
"Sweden has always been at the forefront of
technology, so it's easy to embrace this," said Jacob de Geer, a founder
of iZettle, which makes a mobile-powered card reader.
In Sweden
parishioners text tithes to their churches, homeless street vendors
carry mobile credit-card readers, and even the Abba Museum, despite being a shrine to the 1970s pop group that wrote "Money, Money, Money,"
considers cash so last-century that it does not accept bills and coins.
"We don't want to be behind the times by taking cash while cash is
dying out," says Bjorn Ulvaeus, a former Abba member who has leveraged
the band's legacy into a sprawling business empire, including the
museum.
But not everyone is pleased with the process. Remember, Sweden is the place where, if you use too much cash, banks call the police because they think you might be a terrorist or a criminal.
Swedish banks have started removing cash ATMs from rural areas,
annoying old people and farmers. Credit Suisse says the rule of thumb in
Scandinavia is: "If you have to pay in cash, something is wrong."
Sweden's embrace of electronic payments has alarmed consumer
organizations and critics who warn of a rising threat to privacy and
increased vulnerability to sophisticated Internet crimes.
Last year, the
number of electronic fraud cases surged to 140,000, more than double
the amount a decade ago, according to Sweden's Ministry of Justice.
Older adults and refugees in Sweden who use cash may be marginalized,
critics say, and young people who use apps to pay for everything or take
out loans via their mobile phones risk falling into debt.
"It might be
trendy," says Bjorn Eriksson, a former director of the Swedish police
force and former president of Interpol. "
But there are all sorts of risks when a society starts to go cashless."
Study finds Swedish teachers and students often talk about religion as something outdated and strange
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