Are We On The Verge Of A Cashless Society?

Under current US laws the government cannot invalidate coins like South Korea. US and Canadian money remains money forever, although some of it moves into collections.

Canada is going to try and change their law. At first, they will target discontinued denominations like $25, $500 and $1000 and the millions of $1 and $2 banknotes that people keep in collections. But eventually they will probably invalidate all non-polymer banknotes.

Most traditional European currencies have the right to make their currency invalid. Switzerland prints a new series of banknotes, and the old banknotes are invalid after 20 years.

In the Euro Area, there are still 430 million five hundred Euro banknotes in circulation, and they may never be declared invalid, although they will eventually become almost impossible to spend. They are very expensive to keep as collectibles.

I think there are many advantages of a society that is SLOWLY reducing their cash in circulation. For instance, Norway has reduced the amount of cash in circulation by 30% since it peaked at the end of 2007.

There are many issues with a totally cashless society, but we should be favoring more efficient means of conducting transactions. It's exactly like the hand written check peaked in 1996 in the US. It has been greatly replaced by more efficient payment methods.

29. Feb. 2020 kr 38,845 million of Norwegian Krone in circulation
31. Jan. 2020 kr 39,213
31. Dec. 2019 kr 41,613
30. Nov. 2019 kr 39,677
31. Oct. 2019 kr 39,082
...
31. Dec. 2007 kr 55,685

In the year 2000 when the Greek Drachma was fixed in value to the Euro, all the Greek drachma banknotes cumulatively were worth 8.9 billion Euros. The largest banknote (10,000 drachmas) was worth only €29.35, far less than the Euro banknote denominations. By September 2009 Greece's proportional share of Euro banknotes and coins was 26 billion Euros.

Greek bank deposits went from 238 billion euros in September 2009 to 151 billion euros in June 2012. Since then they have dropped even lower. Much of the billions of euros were sheltered elsewhere in the EU. That kind of movement of capital is largely facilitated with banknotes, as capital controls prevent the easy electronic transfer of that levels of money.

Think how much more difficult it would be to transfer that amount of capital with less than 9 billion in banknotes worth €30 or less which were not widely accepted outside of Greece.

Paper currency has consequences that far exceed how you pay for your pizza.

A total of 9,316,665 visitors arrived in Mexico during 2019, which meant an increase of 13.6 percent compared to 2018. Given the lack of tourists so important to the Mexican economy the exchange rate of peso:USD dropped from 20:1 to 25:1 in the last five weeks, one of the most significant drops in decades.

Only 3% of the worldwide coronavirus deaths are in Latin America (April 18th). I think it is safe to say that Latinos are more concerned about economic meltdown than they are about getting sick from banknotes.

If the USD banknotes in circulation increased to $1.89 trillion that is not a surprise since most people run to dollars and Euros when they are panicking.

The €200 Euro banknote has been very unpopular almost since the beginning, and the number of notes in circulation increased by an average of less than 1 million per month until the €500 stopped being issued last year. In March of 2020, the €200 Euro banknotes in circulation increased by 62 million notes in one month. The quantity of €200 banknotes has now surpassed the quantity of €500 Euro banknotes in circulation.

What is more logical is that a country like Sweden which is already circulating only 20 banknotes per individual would be spooked by the 1500 virus deaths in Sweden, and begin moving into more and more toward contactless payments

Sweden peaked at 108 billion SEK banknotes and coins in 2007, and reduced to less roughly half that amount in a decade. But the value of cash in circulation has been headed upwards in the last few years.

There seems to be some popular resistance to continue dropping the amount of cash in circulation.

About a quarter of the banknotes in Sweden are of denomination 20 SEK, which is a coin in Norway, Denmark, Britain and the Euro Area.
20 Swedish Krona equals 1.84 Euro
If Sweden is concerned with flu virus transmission via banknotes, they could make a big start by simply eliminating this denomination. Coins are easier to boil in water.

It seems as if cash will become completely marginalized if you try to go below 12-15 banknotes per capita.

That's why the events unfolding in Sweden are so interesting. From 1 January 2008 until 1 February 2018 the cash in circulation (CIC) just kept dropping until the cumulative effect was to reduce the CIC by over 50%.

Then it is been rising in a jigsaw fashion (up and down) but mostly up. It's almost like society said do we really want to lose cash as a last resort. Do we want to see all the cash registers removed, and all the ATMs closed down?

Sweden has not had a banking meltdown since 1992, but one can hope that another one won't happen until the end of time, but how much do you want to wager on that possibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedi...nking_rescue

There is no scenario where you can't imagine a way for the government to shut down.

People often talk about the fact that cash works even if the power is down. But you still need the ATM to get the cash in the first place. Plus the high school grad behind the counter doesn't know how to make change.

Yup.

Power goes out and the till will not open for cash either.