A population of 5,5m (and some tourists) produced the following ATM volumes:
Million times/billion €s:
2014: 145,1 million times/14,4billion €
2015: 137,1m/13,9bn
2016: 124,3m/13,0bn
2017: 12,1bn€
2018: 11,4bn€ (out of which 0,2 billion with foreign cards)
2019: still over 10bn? 2000€/citizen. For no good reason..
So the rate of decline of €s is 18% since 2015. Serious cost savings for all. Shops are not widely refusing cash yet - unlike Sweden where this is a rising trend. Transparent pricing much needed. So that consumers in Europe would know that they pay some
50 billion euros for cash handling when they shop.
Cards and mobile is of course not free - but easily less than half of the cost - and bring so many additional risk and cost benefits to the merchants and the consumer. And cash is of course the mother of crime. What is the cost to society at large of this?