Ensuring Payment Choice in the Euro Area

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published an article discussing access to cash in the euro area 1.

It examines the challenges of distance, capacity and public perception and different approaches to modelling them. The paper includes an examination of Austria’s access to cash study by Helmut Stix and Simon Thielen with its granular spatial analyses and vulnerability analysis. It considers the role of commercial bank fees and ends by touching on different approaches to maintaining access to cash across Europe.

The ECB believes that people should be able to choose how to pay regardless of individual payment preference, geographic location or technology savviness. With cash remaining the most popular transaction choice for point-of- sale (POS) and person-to-person (P2P) payments, as well as being used to save and for liquidity in a crisis, the ECB has taken steps to monitor what is happening to cash.