The European Union wants to introduce state money in digital form. This could have negative consequences for cash. Where is European policy heading ? HAKON VON HOLST, 17 March 2025, 14 comments, PDF
Source: Multipolar, Hakon von Holst, 17 March 2025
Everyone has got used to it: your salary ends up in your bank account and the balance can be used to transfer bills and make purchases at the shops. But if the bank goes bust, the citizen is left empty-handed. They are then just one of many creditors who register their claims. It is true that the banks pay into a deposit protection fund in accordance with government regulations so that bank customers receive up to 100,000 euros in compensation in the event of insolvency. However, the customer does not know whether this fund will be sufficient in the event of a major crisis.
Things are different with the planned state digital euro, or e-euro for short. Although it would also flow via the banks’ servers, the financial institutions would only store it on behalf of the citizen, comparable to valuables in a safe deposit box. The e-euro is not on the bank’s balance sheet. So if the bank becomes insolvent, citizens can still transfer their e-euros to another bank – unlike with today’s bank money.
Cash is just as little at risk of insolvency. But can the e-euro be compared to cash? The EU Commission’s draft for a digital euro dates from 28 June 2023 and is being discussed by the governments of the EU member states and the EU Parliament. Both the MEPs in Strasbourg and Brussels and the national finance ministers in the EU Council of Ministers can propose and adopt amendments. The road to the finalised regulation is still long: the deliberations in the Monetary Affairs Committee of the newly elected EU Parliament are starting all over again.
Doubts about the project appear to be high: In a resolution dated 11 February 2025, the Parliament calls on the European Central Bank to make the advantages of a digital euro comprehensible. The Federal Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, is not providing any information on the status of the discussion in the Council of Ministers. According to a report, no progress is expected before July 2025. The digital euro will therefore be analysed below on the basis of the EU Commission’s draft:
Anyone wishing to use the e-euro must contact their bank. As soon as the e-euro account has been set up, you can withdraw digital euros from your current account. The account can be accessed via a smartphone app or a web application for PC users. Most shops will accept the electronic euro, as will all online shops and online booking portals. If a company refuses to accept the e-euro, it will face a fine. Exceptions to this only apply where a shop does not accept any electronic means of payment at the till and at the same time employs fewer than ten staff and generates less than two million euros in turnover per year.
According to Multipolar information, the German government has no objections to this mandatory acceptance of the e-euro. For natural persons – i.e. people, not limited liability companies or associations – payments with the digital euro and account management would basically be free of charge, as merchants are not allowed to charge a surcharge to e-euro users and banks are not allowed to charge fees – the latter being an aspect that has met with disapproval in the financial sector.
As the e-euros are managed by the financial institutions, there are restrictions on privacy. The bank can see who sends how much to whom. If money laundering is suspected, the bank must report this to the Ministry of Finance. However, citizens should also be able to keep certain amounts under their own management on their smartphone. Fabio Panetta, previously a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), named a limit of 50 euros for anonymous transactions in November 2022. The self-managed money could then be transferred directly from smartphone to smartphone, away from the state and banks. At least until the 50 euros have been used up, it would still be possible to pay in retail stores, for example if a software malfunction paralyses the card payment systems.
As e-euros are protected against loss due to bank insolvency, many citizens may prefer to hold their assets in digital euros instead of riskily lending them to a bank. However, the legislator wants to put a stop to this. According to the Bundesbank, private citizens must reckon with a holding limit of between 500 and 3000 euros. It can quickly happen that the e-euro wallet overflows. If a citizen receives more money than their safe deposit box can hold, the surplus is automatically absorbed by the normal bank account. For companies, according to Bundesbank circles, a holding limit of zero euros is now being considered.
Millions of people still live outside the digital financial system, without an account. The electronic euro should also be available to them, as long as the account is used for private purposes. People without a bank account would at least be able to order payments at public authorities or post offices. According to the Bundesbank, a rechargeable cash card is also being considered. Entrepreneurs – and, for example, operators of opposition media – will only receive an e-euro account if they are customers of a normal bank. However, there is one advantage for them: if the financial institution cancels the business relationship, as is increasingly happening to government critics, the e-euro account number is retained. At least if the person concerned finds another bank in time.
The ideas behind the e-euro
Gold and silver coins were once used as a means of payment, then came paper money. The owner had the right to exchange the notes for coins at the bank. Today, the state puts forgery-proof money made of worthless materials into circulation: euro notes and copper coins. And will it only offer electronic euros tomorrow, which will be beyond the owner’s control as soon as the anonymous power of digital systems fails?
For Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, the e-euro is “a further stage in the development of state money – after coins and banknotes”. However, like all other state representatives in Europe, he emphasises that cash will remain and will merely be reinforced by an electronic twin.
The ECB has long justified the need for a digital euro with the trend towards digital payments. According to ECB President Christine Lagarde, if citizens no longer realise that there is insolvency-proof state money that can be used everywhere and that can be used just as easily as private means of payment based on loans and bank balances (girocard, credit card), then public trust in banks will suffer. With the growing importance of online commerce, this consideration is becoming increasingly topical, also in view of the growing rejection of cash at public authorities, hotels or on local transport, while at the same time more and more opportunities to withdraw cash from an account are disappearing.
The discussion about trust in the banking system suggests that the ECB doubts whether cash will retain its role as a means of payment. In its first report on the digital euro in 2020, the ECB wrote in a footnote: “The maintenance costs of the cash infrastructure in relation to the number of cash payments could rise beyond acceptable levels and accelerate the decline in the availability and acceptance of cash.” The costs per individual cash payment will increase if fewer and fewer people use cash.
In the meantime, many arguments in favour of the digital euro can be heard from the ECB: Citizens would have the option of always paying free of charge. Small merchants would be relieved because the fee burden for digital payments would be reduced. People without a bank account would be able to participate in payment transactions. And banks based in Europe would also have an advantage because online merchants would have to accept the digital euro, as the bank receives fees from the merchant for e-euro transactions, while it earns nothing at all from PayPal and Google Pay payments. One strong motive is independence from the US payment service providers Mastercard and Visa. Their market share in the eurozone is over 60 per cent. Only a few countries have their own payment system supported by national banks: Germany, for example, has the Girocard.
The objectives mentioned in the last paragraph have in common that they could also be realised with a European payment system based on bank deposits. A payment platform would be created by law, in which all banks and payment service providers based in Europe would have to participate. Citizens would have free access, fees for companies would be limited and retailers would have to accept the means of payment.
However, a digital safe deposit box on the smartphone that is independent of financial institutions would not be realisable on the basis of bank balances. The main argument in favour of such a possibility is data protection. This may come as a surprise, as the EU Commission is sceptical about anonymous payments. However, it is precisely the Commission that is likely to have long-term expectations of the “smartphone account”: As business journalist Norbert Häring pointed out in an article, the digital euro can be designed in such a way that customers can spend small amounts without government supervision, while retailers would be forced to accept e-euro payments in such a way that the tax authorities are automatically informed of the receipts. The EU Commission has repeatedly endeavoured to encourage citizens to use traceable electronic means of payment. Most recently, under pressure from Brussels, the Italian government Meloni refrained from relaxing the obligation to accept card payments in the retail sector. With the e-euro, the EU Commission would have a new means of encouraging cash payers to use digital money.
Advantages and disadvantages of the e-euro for cash
Does the e-euro give cash an advantage? According to the EU Commission’s plans, it should not only be possible to top up the bank-managed e-euro account by converting bank balances into digital euros. Instead, this would also be possible directly with cash: At the ATM, notes could be exchanged for e-euros or e-euros for notes. According to the European Consumer Organisation BEUC, this would improve access to cash, as the indispensable but endangered cash infrastructure, i.e. ATMs and bank branches, would have another task to fulfil.
However, this increase in importance will only help if it persuades EU legislators to ensure a minimum supply of cash. Otherwise, financial institutions will continue to withdraw. According to a study by the Bundesbank, 15 per cent of German citizens now find it difficult or very difficult to access cash – an increase of nine percentage points since 2021. Between 2017 and 2023, one in three bank branches closed and more and more ATMs are disappearing.
There would be a clear benefit if it were possible for all citizens to convert e-euros into cash at all ATMs free of charge. Society would then once again have access to cash free of charge across the board. The draft law states that the withdrawal of e-euros into paper money should be offered free of charge. However, when asked by Multipolar, the Bundesbank predicts that the conversion into cash will ultimately only work at the account-holding bank’s ATMs. According to the Bundesbank, this is likely to be “favoured for security or regulatory reasons”.
Easier fight against cash
Then there is the flipside. As described above, the digital euro would be another free means of state payment alongside cash. Because the e-euro would also be accepted almost everywhere and available to everyone, it would be easier for the state to restrict the use of cash from now on. After all, people without a bank account would then have an alternative means of payment. In Greece today, a laptop or a medium-sized hotel bill can no longer be paid in cash: penalties are imposed for amounts over 500 euros. And if there are fewer people who are absolutely dependent on cash, the dismantling of the cash infrastructure can also be better justified.
The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, Giovanni Pitruzzella, only recognised a direct link between cash and our fundamental rights where “cash is an element of social inclusion”. In Norbert Häring v Hessischer Rundfunk , he argued that while notes and coins are also linked to other fundamental rights, cash is “generally not necessary” “in order to exercise those fundamental rights”. As far as privacy was concerned, Pitruzzella merely saw cash as guaranteeing “a higher level of protection” than other means of payment, without going into the question of whether digitally logged payments could still be considered private at all.
Displacement of cash
A second disadvantage is that the digital euro could lower the prices for card payments. Small retailers sometimes charge one to two per cent of turnover for card payments. However, Article 17 of the regulation for the digital euro provides for a fee cap. As a result, the acceptance of electronic payments in retail is likely to increase, while some other companies are already considering rejecting cash altogether. This is because the acceptance of banknotes and coins is also a cost issue for businesses – from procuring the change through to the continued realisation of revenue.
If cash becomes more expensive because bank branches disappear or coin-operated machines disappear, and card payments fall in price, there is an incentive to get rid of cash in your own shop. The Managing Director of the German Retail Association, Stefan Genth, complained last year about rising costs and warned of a collapse of the cash system.
But there is another point: the digital euro would be accompanied by an information campaign to ensure that its introduction does not end in failure. The question now is who the digital euro will take market share from. If it also convinces many cash payers, the negative spiral will accelerate. If you don’t use cash, you won’t withdraw cash. As a result, more bank locations for cash withdrawals will disappear. The fewer customers pay with cash, the less interest merchants have in banknotes and coins. Those who then do away with cash at the till may have a clearer conscience, as the e-euro can also be used by people without a bank account.
Brussels is aware of the consequences
Experts from the EU Commission write in a specialised publication published by the authorities that the digital euro could have network effects and thus lead to a decline in the use of cash. When asked by Multipolar, the press office in Brussels explained that the e-euro would theoretically lead to a decline in the use of cash and thus to a reduced acceptance of cash in retail and, conversely, that a decline in acceptance would contribute to a decline in the use of banknotes and coins. However, the digital euro package includes protective measures to “maintain the use of cash as a widespread means of payment”.
The measures to protect cash
The aforementioned digital euro package is a legislative package consisting of the regulation on the digital euro and a draft law on the role of banknotes and coins. The package was presented in 2023. The Cash Regulation, which is linked to the digital euro, regulates what the term “legal tender” means as interpreted by the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. According to this, the principle of the general obligation to accept cash and the prohibition of surcharging cash payers applies. However, such an interpretation already exists and yet shops still refuse to accept cash.
In Germany and Switzerland, the prevailing opinion is that a clearly visible sign on the shop door makes the exclusive acceptance of card payments part of the general terms and conditions. Whoever enters the shop agrees to this rule. This so-called freedom of contract applies until the legislator imposes a penalty. In the Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Finland, Croatia, Estonia and Lithuania, either the national bank or the responsible ministry is of the opinion that banknotes and coins can be refused with the sign on the door.
The Cash Ordinance provides for an exception to the obligation to accept cash: If the buyer agrees with the seller on a different means of payment, the buyer loses the option of paying with cash. The draft law on the digital euro contains the same passage – but with the express proviso of Article 10, according to which the customer retains the right to use digital euros if they wanted to use them for purchases from the outset. So the sign on the door does not work with the e-euro. Against this backdrop, former Bundesbank Vice President Franz-Christoph Zeitler recently wrote that cash is in danger of becoming a “second-class” means of payment. However, the EU Commission stipulates that governments must monitor the extent to which cash payers are turned away at the shop door. If the refusal continues, countermeasures are to be taken and penalties introduced.
Back doors allow cash to be replaced
However, there is no definition of what constitutes sufficient acceptance. The EU Commission does not want to specify which indicators the countries should use for monitoring until after the regulation comes into force. This means that if, for example, the study design of the acceptance monitoring does not take into account the fact that there are cash-rejecting public transport systems or hotels, then a problem situation in this area will not be included in the assessment and the eurozone countries will ultimately not feel obliged to take countermeasures. The EU Commission does not wish to provide any information on the planned indicators.
The regulation also requires sufficient access to cash. However, it remains unclear under what circumstances this access is given. If, in the end, only the pure number of ATMs is considered, the fact that third-party ATMs charge such high fees that access to cash is de facto non-existent is ignored. If the focus is only on the distance travelled by citizens to cash-dispensing retailers, the fact that there is sometimes too little cash available at the checkout is overlooked.
The sticking point is that the “principle of proportionality” must be observed when taking countermeasures. Top EU diplomat Martin Selmayr explained the background to theAustrian newspaper“Standard”: “Proportional” would mean, for example, that a kiosk could continue to refuse cash, while a large supermarket would have to expect a fine. Who says how long it is proportionate to maintain a little-used ATM?
The Commission already explains in the regulation that possible countermeasures include introducing restrictions “only in certain sectors that are considered essential, such as post offices, supermarkets, pharmacies or healthcare facilities”. According to the press office in Brussels, this is a “non-exhaustive list of examples of such measures that Member States could take to effectively combat the widespread and structural refusal of cash”.
Another loophole in the draft law is the possibility for companies to obtain change and transfer the revenue. This can be problematic because there is no requirement in Germany for banks to procure change or accept deposits. Only the savings banks have an explicit mandate to provide “monetary and credit services”. However, the form in which a supply of coins, for example, is to take place is not regulated. When asked by Multipolar, the German Savings Banks and Giro Association wrote: “There is no specific legal regulation that directly obliges savings banks to provide a cash supply network for their customers.”
Still no right to cash withdrawal
Even if there were a good network of ATMs or sufficient access to cash, a bank customer may not be able to obtain banknotes from any ATM (or retailer). This is relevant as more and more online banks are appearing without their own branches and ATMs. Today, cash withdrawals are also possible with such current account models. But what will it be like in the future? A university professor of banking law and civil law, who wishes to remain anonymous, comes to the following conclusion when asked by Multipolar: “The contractual agreement with the bank regarding the current account may stipulate that there is no access to cash. And as far as repayment of the credit balance in the event of the account being closed is concerned, a remark in the general terms and conditions is sufficient and the citizen must accept that the bank will only cancel its debt to him by transferring it in euros to his new account at another financial institution.
Daniela Bergdolt, a lawyer specialising in banking and capital market law, confirmed to Multipolar that banks can contractually exclude cash withdrawals. So far, no higher court has ruled that this is unlawful. “The terms of the contract must always state what is ultimately done,” says Bergdolt. “If you agree, then those have become the terms of the contract.” The lawyer comments: “Consumers have the feeling that a bank is fulfilling a kind of public law mandate: ‘They are not allowed to cancel us, they have to grant us an account’. That’s not the case. The bank is just as much a market participant as anyone else.”
Will politicians protect cash?
The future fate of cash depends very much on the behaviour of the EU institutions and national governments. What can we expect? The EU Commission has ignored for years how the cash infrastructure has been weakened in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland. It followed the motto of former EU Digital Commissioner Günther Oettinger: “The market will do it.” Oettinger also said in 2016: “Cash is dying out: We will pay with the Apple Watch, pay with the smartphone.”
According to Article 133 of the TFEU, the EU has a mandate at EU constitutional level to take the measures necessary to preserve the single currency. It is only now, based on this article, that the EU Commission wants to introduce the digital euro and thus ensure the usability of the euro in all areas. Until now, however, it should have realised this goal by consistently protecting cash.
The cash regulation only came on the table when Brussels wanted to introduce an e-euro and is part of the digital euro package. Brussels is thus emphasising that the digital euro should only supplement cash, not replace it. In the past, however, the EU Commission has done a lot to favour card payments in competition with cash: for example, it has ensured that bank charges for depositing coins have risen sharply by introducing authentication regulations. All coins have to be checked. This is despite the fact that the smaller denominations with a value of less than 50 cents are not counterfeited at all, as the Bundesbank admits when asked by Multipolar. At the same time, Brussels has managed to reduce card payment fees for merchants – temporarily – at a crucial stage. The declared aim was to push back cash and promote the acceptance of card payments.
The ECB’s passive stance
In 2023, the ECB put its foot down in favour of banknotes and coins when it called for an immediate obligation to accept cash on penalty, instead of monitoring how often cash payers are turned away. However, she completely ignored the issue of cash availability, which would depend on the banks. Like the EU Commission, the ECB behaved extremely passively for years while the cash infrastructure was being dismantled by banks in various euro countries. It did not publicly protest that businesses in the Netherlands were increasingly rejecting cash. The ECB also did not exchange blows with the Commission when the market conditions were to be changed in favour of digital payment methods used by banks and card companies.
Unlike the Deutsche Bundesbank, it did not go on camera at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis to dispel rumours that it was infected with cash. Instead, ECB Executive Board member Fabio Panetta announced in numerous media outlets at the end of 2020 that it was necessary to work intensively on the digital euro, citing the trend away from cash at the checkout. There is no evidence of any kind of commitment on the part of the central bank to find creative solutions to ensure that cash remains an inexpensive means of payment for retailers despite declining usage.
The card companies have a huge budget to advertise their services. The ECB, on the other hand, does not run campaigns to publicise the social value of cash or to correct misinformation about cash among the general public.
The central bank’s behaviour is somewhat at odds with what an ECB director said in a webinar last year: “You can believe us that we like cash. Cash is our baby and we are the only ones who can issue banknotes and we want people to keep using banknotes.” As recently as 2015, an ECB board member, Benoît Cœuré, told investors in London: “Although I can well imagine a world without cash, I see this as the result of technological changes and a change in society – not as a result of political measures.” At that time, there were many voices loudly contemplating an exit from cash. However, they became quieter, no doubt also because the debate became emotionalised and became the focus of public attention. The middle level of the ECB is now definitely in favour of cash. However, this influence on monetary policy could diminish if the digital euro gains in importance.
When Christine Lagarde was nominated as the new ECB President in 2019, she first had to answer questions from MEPs in the Monetary Affairs Committee. Markus Ferber put his finger in the wound and addressed several specialist articles that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had previously published under Lagarde’s presidency. The publications dealt, for example, with the question of how negative interest rates could be levied not only on bank deposits, but also on cash. A paper by Aleksei Kireyev, a senior IMF economist and friend of Lagarde, analysed how governments could gradually eliminate cash without arousing resistance from the population.
For Lagarde, it was not a priority to rule out the abolition of cash vis-à-vis Ferber. She said that it was necessary to weigh up which monetary policy tools would be suitable to support the system in the future in the event of a crisis and that a cost-benefit analysis was needed. Tagesschau correspondent Klaus-Rainer Jackisch then commented: “Abolish cash? That’s also conceivable if it helps.”
At a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January 2016, Lagarde agreed with Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan’s prediction that cash would cease to exist in ten years’ time. Cryan called for cash to be “dematerialised”. On the same day, 20 January 2016 , the Central Bank of China announced a digital yuan. Its head, Zhou Xiaochuan, said in an interview at the time: “The digital currency will co-exist with cash for quite some time before it finally replaces it.”
The legal protection of cash
Article 128 of the TFEU and Article 16 of the ECB Statute currently prevent the complete abolition of cash. In both cases, a change requires the approval of all 27 EU member states. Banknotes will therefore fundamentally remain a means of payment that must be accepted by everyone, although it is not clear to what extent the economy can switch to refusing cash with a sign on the shop door without undermining the principle of mandatory acceptance.
According to Article 128 (1) TFEU, the ECB has the “right” to authorise the national central banks to issue euro banknotes. According to the Bundesbank, however, it has not been clarified whether this wording also entails an obligation to put cash into circulation. While a German legal scholar denied an obligation for the ECB under Article 128 years ago, a professor from Brussels argued at a central bank congress in 2024 that the status of banknotes as legal tender gives the EU institutions a mandate to protect the right of citizens to always be able to fulfil a payment obligation with euro banknotes.
Whatever the outcome of the discussion, there are other hurdles: When asked by Multipolar, the German Savings Banks and Giro Association writes that in practice there is “an essential requirement to convert central bank balances into legal tender (cash)”. German banks are obliged to hold a certain amount of money on the Bundesbank’s account. They must be able to have the surplus paid out – in the central bank’s means of payment, i.e. cash. If the Bundesbank were to stop paying out the money, the banks would feel expropriated.
If politicians wanted to abolish cash, the minimum requirement would therefore be to establish the digital euro and at the same time allow banks to hold unlimited amounts of money in digital euros. Banks would then be able to receive their surplus in e-euros instead of cash and would hardly be able to procure banknotes to offer their customers cash withdrawals. However, when asked by Multipolar, the Bundesbank writes that the e-euro regulation does not enable banks to take possession of e-euros themselves. And the extent to which such a scenario is even realistic remains an open question.
What high politics thinks about the world of tomorrow
In any case, the ECB leadership is preparing for the loss of cash as a means of payment in the longer term. This was demonstrated during an appearance by ECB Executive Board member Pierro Cipollone, Fabio Panetta’s successor, before the EU Parliament’s Monetary Affairs Committee in February 2024, where he defended the digital euro project to a Dutch parliamentarian:
“We will do everything in our power to ensure that people can continue to use cash (…) But we cannot control what the market will do. One example: Have you seen how many supermarkets are changing the way people pay? There are now very few places (i.e. checkouts) where you can pay with cash and many places where you can pay with any other means of payment. So, the technology to pay with cash will disappear.”
Cipollone concluded by saying: “We have a responsibility to be prepared, because otherwise one day people might come to us and say: ‘We no longer have the opportunity to use state money in our society – what have you done to prevent that? I don’t want to be in that situation.” Cipollone therefore does not seem to believe that cash can be preserved in the long term, even with the planned draft law. And the included “proportionality requirement” is likely to weaken the effectiveness of the regulation the less people use cash.
On the international stage, people are sometimes more outspoken. Basel is home to the Bank for International Settlements, which is effectively the central bank of central banks and a meeting place for the world’s most influential central bankers. Its head, Agustín Carstens, said in Dublin in 2019, in no uncertain terms, about what a world in which digital currencies have become established would look like: “At first glance, not much would change for someone passing by the supermarket on their way home from work, for example. He or she would no longer have the option of paying in cash. All purchases are made electronically. But this is where the differences become clear: a digital central bank currency is not necessarily anonymous like cash (…)”
Finance Minister Christian Lindner also seemed to think this was possible when he brought up the e-euro as a replacement for cash: he took part in the panel discussion in November 2022 at which Fabio Panetta proposed 50 euros as the limit for e-euro payments without state supervision. Lindner told Panetta that this was already very little and that people would not accept it. Following the conference, Christian Lindner tweeted that “digital cash” – meaning the e-euro – would “only be widely accepted as a supplement or equivalent replacement for notes and coins” if privacy was protected.
The Central Bank of Canada sees a digital currency as the means of payment that will replace banknotes and coins when cash reaches the point of no return, i.e. the point at which it no longer seems proportionate or feasible for policymakers to ensure that its infrastructure is maintained. In the summer of 2024, the central bank wrote in a publication: “Cash is likely to become less important in the future, and if it ever declines to the point where it is no longer viable as a means of payment, a properly designed government digital currency would help to bridge the gap and maintain the importance of government money in the economy.”
It is in the hands of the citizen
The characteristics of banknotes and coins include the freedom to keep taxed income in one’s own hands, the independence of the citizen from direct access to money by the state, anonymity when paying, the ability to act in the event of technical failures, better control over one’s own spending, the promotion of disciplined handling of money, even among children, inclusion of people with visual impairments, Down’s syndrome and other disabilities, the possibility of earning money independently without having to open a bank account beforehand, and autonomy from the financial industry’s ideas on fees.
If the exclusive characteristics of cash and the consequences of its disappearance are brought to the public’s attention, citizens can make a conscious decision at the checkout whether to pay digitally and thus work towards the disappearance of cash or whether to use notes and coins and thus help to ensure that future generations can also benefit from the properties of cash.
Politicians will have to ask themselves the same question and, as a result, either refrain from consistently protecting cash or ensure access to cash and its acceptance.
About the author: Hakon von Holst, born in 1999, has been researching the suppression of cash since 2019. He studied at the Free Academy for Media & Journalism in 2022-23. In addition to the financial sector, his work focuses on agricultural policy and environmental issues. He has previously published in Berliner Zeitung, Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, Overton Magazin, NachDenkSeiten, Manova and on Norbert Häring’s blog, among others.
