Dutch central bank comes down in favour of hard cash

Should we prepare ourselves for a cashless future? Not according to De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), which is ready to ward off any large scale attempts by card schemes and retailers to abandon notes and coins in favour of plastic and electronic payments.

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Dutch central bank comes down in favour of hard cash

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

In a bulletin posted on its Web site, the Dutch central bank says it is committed to "maintaining cash as a universally useable and available payment instrument and a smoothly functioning cash chain".

The latest research by DNB reveals that the volume of debit card payments at Dutch points of sale has increased from €81 billion in 2010 to €84 billion in 2012. At the same time, cash withdrawals at ATMs dropped from €52 billion in 2010 to €49 billion in 2012.

So in terms of sales, the card has overtaken cash, but in terms of transaction numbers, cash is still the dominant means of payment, with 3.8 billion cash payments made at Dutch counters in 2012, against 2.5 billion card transactions.

While acknowledging the desirable efficiency gains of debit card usage, the bank points out that cash is still the only means of payment that is accepted virtually everywhere, while it also serves as the principal alternative in case the electronic payment chain should break down. It also has a key role to play in promoting financial inclusion among the underbanked sectors of the economy and preserving the consumer's right to privacy, says the Dutch central bank.

In March this year, a group of Dutch banks and MasterCard held a special musical, cashless 'thank you' event for the country's shop workers to reward them for their endeavours in promoting the use of plastic cards over physical currency. All 1700 attendees were given PayPass bracelets loaded with EUR7.50, enabling them to pay for refreshments with a flick of their wrists using MasterCard's contactless payment technology.

While not frowning per se on the current experiments with cashless shops, DNB says that it would regard any larger-scale refusal or pricing of cash payments as "undesirable".

"DNB expects cash to remain indispensable for some time to come," says tthe central bank bulletin. "For this reason, cash should remain generally available as an all-purpose means of payment, implying that consumers must be readily able to withdraw and deposit cash from and into their bank accounts. Retailers, in turn, should have easy means at their disposal to deposit counter receipts into their bank accounts."

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Comments: (3)

Christopher Williams

Christopher Williams Chairman at RTpay

Nobody suggests cash should disappear completely, not least so those who mistrust any electronic system can have an option. However, it would be nice to see it made more difficult and more limited, so that progress in reducing crime (tax evasion, as well as others) and lowering administrative costs can take place. Perhaps a maximum-valued note of $5 would make it harder to launder large amounts? And a 10% added tax on any ATM conversion to cash?

For all the fine words about tax evasion, little action is taken; let's make carrying large amounts of cash a bit harder, please!

 

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Kudos to DNB for reiterating that cash is legal tender - a basic fact that tends to be forgotten in all this hype about mobile payments.

A Finextra member 

While I fully agree with the Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank) or DNB about expectations that cash is to ‘…remain indispensable for some time to come’, I don’t agree with the notion that society must not prepare itself for a cashless future.  Let’s summarise the current and likely future effects of the digital age, on some sectors of the economy.  Books are becoming eBooks, music DVDs are increasingly bought online through companies such as Apple, DVDs of films are making way for online high definition versions if desired, the newspaper industry is dying and will soon be replaced with digital versions of their mastheads, the commercial viability of free to air television and radio will be challenged by the its digital equivalents, and finally, banks will be transformed by the digital age principally by mobile phone payments with eReceipts and eVouchers.    

https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=7869

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