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In Austria, 48% of people say they prefer to use cash (ECB, 2017)

calendar iconJun 3, 2020

Source
The statistic comes from the European Central Bank's study on Cash Use by Household in the Euro Area, published in November 2017.

The report presents estimations of the number and value of cash transactions in all 19 euro area countries in 2016, based on survey result as well as figures on main payments by demographic.

According to the findings from the European Central Bank's report, 48% of Austrians say they prefer to use cash (ECB, 2017).

Excerpts from ECB

"On average 43% of respondents in the euro area said they would prefer to pay by card or by another non-cash method of payment if given the choice, while only 32% would choose to pay in cash (Chart 36). A quarter of the respondents reported having no preferred method of payment. These results are in contrast with the actual use of cash and non-cash methods presented in earlier chapters, which show that 79% of all POS payments were carried out using cash." (p. 52)

European Central Bank (Nov, 2017)

"It could be argued that consumers are often obliged to pay in cash given a lack of choice, for example when a retailer does not accept cards. Nevertheless, in 72% of cases euro area consumers did have the option of choosing between cash and non-cash payment methods. Therefore, it may be the case that they think they use cash less often than they do in reality, or that there may be other reasons which influence them to choose cash even when they prefer alternative means of payment and these alternatives are available. In this respect, Van der Cruijsen, et al. (2017) find that in the case of the Netherlands, payment habits play a significant role in explaining the discrepancy between how consumers prefer to pay and how they actually pay." (p. 52)

"Despite numerous articles claiming a cashless society is imminent, it appears that the use of cash at POS is still robust in most euro area countries."
"Cash Use by Household in the Euro Area, p. 56European Central Bank (Nov, 2017)

"Looking at the survey results on preferences per country, it appears that Cyprus is the only country where the majority of consumers said that they prefer to pay with cash if they are free to choose between cash and cashless means of payment." (p. 52)

Read more

Download study

Source

Esselink, Henk, Lola Hernández. "Occasional papers series: The use of cash by households in the euro area". No 201. European Central Bank. Electronically published November 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017. 

Last Updated: Jun 30, 2020

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