A small group of Swedes protesting against a cashless economy

Public toilet and shower in Trelleborg (Sweden) with payment terminals CoinCode on each door. Payment terminal connected to the castle. You can get the code for opening the door and by SMS

The widespread introduction of non-cash (and contactless) payments seems to be a very correct and technologically advanced step, because it's so cool to hold a mobile phone or a card over the terminal - and the required amount will be debited from your account. Convenient and progressive. But only at first glance. Some residents of Sweden are protesting against the state policy of a full transition to a bank transfer.

A few years ago, the Scandinavian country announced an official policy of eliminating cash from circulation. And now more and more small cafes, restaurants and shops - even public toilets - are refusing to accept cash. Facility owners do not want to install special equipment (cash desks) to receive dirty papers and coins, order expensive collection services, and hire additional personnel (cashiers) because of the small number of militant radicals. Loss of several clients cannot convince small business.

Sweden is one of the most progressive countries in terms of the introduction of non-cash payments. According to statistics from the Central Bank of Sweden , from 2010 to 2016, the share of cash in trade fell from 40% to 15%. Two thirds of consumers say they can do without cash normally. Approximately the same amount of cards is used even for minimum payments of less than 100 kroons ($ 11.90).

More than half of bank branches in Sweden no longer issue or accept cash. The same policy is followed by many shops. As a result, total cash payments fell to less than 2% of GDP. "In the near future, Sweden may become a country in which cash will no longer be in wide circulation," the National Bank proudly reports in a press release.

Although the absolute majority of Swedes are pleased with technological progress, not everyone liked it. As a result, a small protest movement was formed in the country - a group called Kontantupproret (“Cash Rising”), writes The Guardian .

Kontantupproret activists believe that a complete rejection of cash is too extreme a scenario. In their opinion, the government does not take into account the risks of unfavorable developments, when suddenly a digital or banking infrastructure fails. Don't we trust banks too much? What do people without money in this case than pay off?

No computer system is insured against failures: for example, last year in Sweden, failures in payment processing by two banks were recorded twice. Activists believe that IT infrastructure is systemically vulnerable in nature.

Representatives of the Pirate Party of Sweden also indicate that in a non-cash economy, all payments will pass through the servers of Visa and MasterCard.

In a corrupt or authoritarian country, citizens could massively oppose a 100% transition to non-cash transfer due to a lack of trust in the government. After all, the authorities can track the payment history of each citizen and, if desired, establish total surveillance, violating bank secrecy. In Sweden, there is no lawlessness and corruption in the higher echelons of power, which makes the protest movement very difficult: “The Swedish government is pretty good, we have mostly been lucky with it for the last 100 years,” admits Christian Engström, a former MEP from the Pirate Party and cashless economy. - In other countries there is a lot more awareness that you can’t trust the government all the time. In Sweden, it’s difficult to mobilize people. ”

In fact, in Sweden it is difficult to mobilize people for such an idea. Now there is a widespread opinion in society that Kontantupproret is a kind of pensioner movement (the head of the organization is 72 years old). But who knows how the political situation will change in the future, and will it not be too late to correct mistakes when the transition to a non-cash economy is fully completed?

It seems that citizens have some doubts about this. In a recent survey, about 70% of respondents said that they would like to leave the opportunity to use cash and only 25% are in favor of a fully cashless society.