• Sweden: share of cash transactions 2000-2019

Cash money was used in roughly over 12 percent of all retail payments in Sweden, reinforcing beliefs that the country will become the first cashless society in the world. This according to estimations based on the available data regarding cash withdrawals and payment transactions. No data exists on the actual use of cash money, outside of survey diaries. Such a diary, covering consumers' use of cash money in shops, was held in Europe only once, in 2017. As not all payment data is readily available, like the use of OTC or over-the-counter cash withdrawals, note this can still mean that the cash share numbers provided here are not necessarily accurate.

Share of cash in total payment transactions in Sweden from 2000 to 2019

Characteristic	Share of cash
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Release date

October 2020

More information

Region

Sweden

Survey time period

2000 to 2019

Supplementary notes

No data is available that covers the exact volume of transactions conducted with cash money. In order to make a credible estimation, this calculation looked at the following indicators:

Value of ATM cash withdrawals (either with cards issued by resident PSPs at any terminal, provided by either a resident or non-resident PSP, or with cards issued by non-resident PSPs at terminals provided by resident PSPs;
Value of OTC or over-the-counter cash withdrawals;
Value of card payments, issued by resident PSPs;
Value of e-money payment transactions, issued by resident PSPs.

To summarize, this methodology tries to put cash withdrawals, either at an ATM or OTC, in perspective of all payment transactions (withdrawals + card payment+ e-money transactions) within a country. Numbers on checks, ACH or instant payments have not been used.

Note that numbers on OTC withdrawals and e-money are not always readily available for all years. Multiple sources were consulted to get to these numbers. In the case of Sweden, no data was available on OTC cash withdrawals.

Increases in 2017 and 2019 were caused by a higher number of ATM withdrawals, whilst card payments grew but at a smaller pace.

The values used in the calculations for Sweden were in Swedish krona.