FOR THE first time in the history of credit and debit cards, plastic has overtaken cash as a method of payment in Spain, according to marketing consultancy Nielsen.
At the beginning of this year, the Central European Bank (BCE) reported that 87% of people in Spain still used cash rather than cards for their daily purchases, and that in the Eurozone as a whole, 79% of transactions and 54% of the total amount spent involved notes and coins.
Spaniards' actual total spending in cash – 68% - put it below the European average, even though the number of transactions in cash were above the European average.
Also across the Eurozone, the average cash transaction as at the beginning of 2020 was €12.38, whilst the average transaction using any payment method at all was €18.10, and around two-thirds of purchases came to less than €15.
The BCE said that in the common currency area, 88% of transactions for €15 or less were in cash, but only 8% for those of €50 or more and just 2% for purchases exceeding €100.
Those who avoided cash altogether if they could, and those who used cash for absolutely everything, both accounted for around a quarter of the total each, with the remaining 50% being somewhere in between along a scale ranging from 'mostly cash' to 'rarely cash'.
But this has changed in Spain since the country went into lockdown on March 15, a situation it only came out of at the end of June.
Now, only 45.5% of transactions of any amount are made in cash, compared with 54.1% by card.
Around the time lockdown was declared, those traders and other services considered 'essential' and permitted, or actually required, to stay open were strongly encouraged to accept mobile phone, SmartWatch, or card payments, particularly contactless, since it meant not having to touch items that had been handled by another person and which could, it was suspected, pass on the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com