Sweden overtook the United States as the country with the largest number of non-cash payments per capita

According to the annual World Payments Report, Sweden overtook the United States as the country with the largest number of non-cash payments per capita.

Data from the World Payments Report 2018 launched by Capgemini and BNP Paribas, which calculates non-cash transactions in many countries around the World.

The countries with the largest number of non-cash transactions in the reporting period (2016) were the United States, topped 148.5 billion times, Eurozone ranked second with 74.5 billion times, and China, where mobile payments are most developed, came third with in 48 billion.

Sweden overtook the United States as the country with the largest number of non-cash payments per capita.

In 2016, Swedes conducted an average of 461.5 non-cash transactions, an increase of 13% compared with 2015.

The main reasons include that the swedes are skilled and have access to technical solutions such as Swish and bank-id.

The United States ranked second in the number of non-cash payments per capita, with an average of 459.6 no-cash transactions per person, and the growth rate of e-payments was 5.2 percent.

In fact, credit card transactions have long been prevalent in the United States, so it is not surprising that growth is slow.

The report predicts that Sweden will remain the world’s largest cashless country, with high growth in the number of e-payment transactions.

Image from: worldpaymentsreport.com

World Payments Report projections based on national consumption habits collected in 2016

Swedes love technology and are adept at using it, and more and more people are paying their big and small bills by phone and credit card, the report said.

In addition, the government of the country has adopted a series of policies, and the monetary authority of the country often refers to the use of electronic currency to support and encourage the citizens to use electronic payment, including the free payment service platform and the mobile app “Swish”.

In Sweden, when people walk into the biggest coffee chain, the sign at the door reminds customers that no cash is charged, please pay with a card or a smartphone, sorry to inconvenience you.

This also means that if you want to drink coffee and buy cinnamon bread, there is no modern payment tool, sorry, trouble you don’t come in and bother; If you hop on a sparkling blue bus, there’s also no chance of using COINS or banknotes. Without a smartphone or credit card, you can only “get out of the car” as the driver watches.

Walking the streets of Stockholm, Sweden’s largest city, and especially the spotless Odenplan square, the surrounding Banks have no services for handling cash.




In the area of mobile payments, in 2012, the largest 7 banks in Sweden jointly launched the instant payment application Swish, which now has more than half of Swedish consumers registering for the application.

“Swish” has two very important technologies behind it, one BankGirot (bank transfer network) and the other BankID (online authentication).

Such infrastructure is rare elsewhere, the report notes, allowing Sweden to take the lead.

However, in February of this year, the Swedish central bank governor Stefan Ingves warned that，Sweden will soon face the prospect of all payment methods being controlled by private Banks, calling for new laws to ensure that the public sector controls the payment system.

Stefan ingves that the payment system is a national defense and judicial public interests, once the war or natural disasters and other crises, as long as the payment system lockout, the cashless society will face serious challenges. Because there is no science and technology system can completely avoid failure, or artificial fraud of criminal behavior.

In addition, the cashless payment society is very convenient and fast, but also increases the ignorance of personal expenses and the prevention of fraud. Consumers are completely free of the stress of paying cash, so they often overspend when they swipe their card, and even get a sense of pleasure when they swipe their card. And enterprises because of the business to retain the credit card (or debit card), but also lack of cash transaction records, as a result, they are at increased risk of fraud (two main types of credit card fraud: Thieves get data by hand or through a hidden automation program).

In the “Cashless Payment society”, other problems such as uncontrolled consumption are also prone to occur.




There are also privacy concerns in cashless payment societies.

Personal savings and information about personal income and transactions can be viewed by anyone who has access to the record-whether legal or not, such as police and tax-related personnel or hackers.

In recent years, Swedes have become increasingly concerned about the cashless means of payment, which poses problems for the elderly and other vulnerable groups. Because the vast majority of Banks have long since ceased allowing customers to withdraw or pay cash on the counter, and people living near the business district are used to that.

Society is always progressing, innovation is to encourage, “cashless society” should be regarded as progress, but the drawbacks are also very obvious, the physical currency and cashless payment of two ways at the same time there is better.

According to the World Payments Report 2018, South Korea currently ranks third in the number of non-cash Payments per capita, Finland fourth and Australia fifth.

As can be seen from the report, trends in cashless payment societies are spreading throughout the world.

The non-cash boom is driven by developing markets, with Russia (CAGR of 36.5%), India (33.2%) and China (25.8%) becoming significant drivers in 2015-16 years. Mature market to maintain stable growth of more than 7%.

Tips:
1.”No cash” in the report, in addition to mobile payments, includes cheques, debit cards, credit card payments, credit transfers and direct debit transactions.

2. When a crisis such as war or natural disasters comes, the lack of electricity supply will make the cashless payment Society a nightmare. Our website has a detailed report on this,

please see：

Cashless payments have become a nightmare for victims of Japan’s disaster – the “cashless society” is in doubt