38 pc of Romanians would go cash-free, ING study reveals

It seems that Romanians are ready to move to a “cashless society”, according to the ING International Survey Mobile Banking 2017. 38 percent of them have shown the willingness to give up cash completely among 15,000 people across 15 countries surveyed.

Across Europe, the ING study found a continuing decline in cash use, with more than half of people (54 percent) having used less cash in the past 12 months and 78 percent of this group expecting to use it even less over the next 12 months.

Compared to Romania, 30 percent of people in Germany and France would go cashless, being overcome by the 40 percent of people in Poland, 41 percent in Italy and 42 percent in Turkey – the country where the appetite for going cashless was strongest.

Nearly one in four (24 percent) people surveyed in Australia would go cashless. It’s interesting that people in the United States share the same appetite for a non-cash life like Romanians do, namely 38 percent.

“For many, cash is no longer king. The days of rushing to the ATM so you have enough money for the weekend are long gone. Card and even mobile phone payments are increasingly being seen as safe substitutes. Despite this, cash is not likely to die out soon. Four in five consumers say they have used cash in the last three days. Many would not want to go completely cashless and some prefer the privacy and physical sensation of cold hard cash,” ING senior economist Ian Bright said.

National Bank of Romania (BNR) data reveal last year that the holders of cards issued by local banks have made payments to merchants of RON 7.6 billion (EUR 1.7 billion) in the first six months of 2016, up by 22 percent compared to the same period of 2015.

Meanwhile, the proportion of those who actually went cashless over the past 12 months were negligible. Roughly 1 percent in Europe said they did not need cash for at least a year. ING said that mobile banking surveys in 2016, 2015 and 2014 also found people are reducing reliance on physical cash and increasingly transacting via non-cash methods.

The alternatives for cash range from checks to credit and debit cards, mobile wallets and other electronic payment facilities such as mobile applications on a tablet, smartphone or wearable device.

The survey also showed that more than half of the Europeans believed that there is a “high” or “very high” level of security for cashless transactions. However, they were less positive regarding the privacy level afforded by non-cash options and 66 percent on average felt privacy was high for cash transactions.