Cash in the Pandemic: European Round Up

The ECB has published a comprehensive report of what has happened to cash in the euro area during the pandemic.

Within Europe, and the Eurosystem, the detail is, of course, nuanced country by country. Central banks are not the only organisations to follow cash and here we report on cash in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK from a variety of sources, only one of which is a central bank, the Dutch National Bank (DNB).

In Italy and Spain, a report by Outman Consulting considers its new survey of the public, which found that cash use for payments under €10 fell from 78% to 48%. It looks at the reasons for cash being preferred – a large number of small retailers, a large shadow economy, a large elderly population and a culture that is risk averse. It then considers the forces moving both countries to a digital future – government initiatives, the rising number of Millennials and Gen Z in the workforce and the activities of the banks.