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The Swiss love their cash

(WSJ) The Swiss love cash, and use it regularly to pay for purchases large and small. Their affinity shows no sign of abating, and flies in the face of a global trend toward cashless economies and electronic payments that can better track potential fraud.

“It certainly seems that the Swiss are out of kilter with the dominant trend around the world,” said Michael Levi, a professor of criminology at Cardiff University.

Experts cite a number of reasons for the Swiss affection for cash. It is a relatively safe country, making robbery or mugging less likely; it is also a predominantly rural place, where transactions have tended to be face-to-face, and money may be seen as a tangible thing to keep on hand.

To that end, the Swiss keep far more paper money on hand than citizens of other nations. Cash usage has declined since 1990, when about 90% of the money used in Switzerland was in cash: “In 2015, it was merely 60%.”

Posted by
9014 posts

phred, there was a WSJ article several months ago, noting that Germans also were preferred cash-users, attributing it to a desire for privacy - that is not leaving tracks of your purchasing habits. Maybe Swiss are the same.

Posted by
32362 posts

"that is not leaving tracks of your purchasing habits."

Unfortunately using cash is no guarantee of privacy. The purchasing habits of anyone using so-called "Loyalty Cards" such as Air Miles can be tracked even if they pay by cash.