Both governments and big companies want people and organisations to terminate the use of cash for payments. Governments are banning cash payment with the argument that money laundering and terrorist financing are prevented. Big companies want to follow every citizen and every organisation in all their financial movements and use the data for commercial purposes; many of them (e.g.  banks) have anti-money laundering obligations.

European consumer organisations are worried about this trend as explained in the article on CashEssentials: European Consumer Association says consumers need a right to use cash. In the article reports on a position papier published by The European Consumer Organisation / Europäischer Verbraucherverband / Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs (BEUC). In that paper BEUC recommends to ensure access to and acceptance of cash. The position paper “Cash versus cashless: consumers need a right to use cash” can be downloaded here (pdf).

More information:

BEUC acts as the umbrella group in Brussels for its members and our main task is to represent them at European level and defend the interests of all Europe’s consumers. One of the themes BEUC is digitalisation of finance. The organisation has published on open banking, security standards for online payments, big data in finance and other financial matters.

CashEssentials acts as an independent initiative, which aims at offering a platform for debate about the payments and monetary ecosystems, to conduct and foster high-quality research on cash and its future.

Addition 12 May 2020
Read Vrees voor blijvend verdwijnen contant geld, Radar.

Addition of 16 August 2021
 

Physical cash is probably the most financially inclusive monetary instrument we’ve ever witnessed. Central bankers are planning to take it away from us.

— Arturo Portilla (@Arturo_P_A) August 13, 2021