Europe: cash share by country 2019

Of 38 different European countries, consumers from the five Nordics countries and the United Kingdom were least likely to use cash money in 2019. This according to estimations based on what data is available regarding the value of cash withdrawals and payment transactions. As not all payment data is readily available in all countries, note this can still mean that the cash share numbers provided here are not necessarily accurate. The exact volume of cash money transactions, either the number or the value, is not known within Europe. Individual countries might have their own survey diaries. Such a survey, which covers consumers' use of different payment methods in shops, was held only twice for Europe. In both 2016 and 2019, a comparative study looked into cash use for the euro area only.

Estimate of the share of cash in total POS payment transactions in 38 countries in Europe in 2019

Characteristic	Share of cash
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-
-	-

Download

Source

Show detailed source information?

Already a member?

Sources

Use Ask Statista Research Service

Release date

November 2020

More information

Region

Europe

Survey time period

2019

Special properties

Estimates based on data from domestic sources and concerns transaction values, not the number.

Supplementary notes

The numbers provided here are based on calculations. No data is available that covers the exact volume of transactions conducted with cash money. The share of cash used here stands for the value of cash withdrawals as a percentage of the value of transactions made with these same withdrawals plus two of cash' biggest substitutes. 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. Data availability and quality can vary substantially within Europe. This shows, for example, in that not all countries had a complete dataset for 2018 or that a country like Luxembourg showed an overrepresentation of e-money in their data.

Citation formats