Cash-based payments drop again in Switzerland

The number of cash payments fell for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE / CHRISTIAN BEUTLER

In 2023, debit cards were once again the most important means of payment in Switzerland, ahead of cash. In third place are digital devices such as mobile phones, tablets and smartwatches. In 2022, cash had displaced the debit card from the top spot after two years.

The number of cash payments therefore fell for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, according to the tenth Swiss Payment Monitor published on Thursday by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the University of St. Gallen.

Cash payments fell by 3.2 percentage points and still accounted for a quarter of transactions. Payments via devices followed close behind cash with 23.3%. Debit cards continued to lead the way with 29.3% in 2023 – after 29% of sales in the previous year.

+ Why has cash been king in Switzerland

Debit cards were ahead both in terms of on-site payments (41.2%) and the number of transactions (37%). Credit cards followed with a 29.1% share of on-site payments, the so-called face-to-face business, and was in third place in terms of transactions.

This includes transactions with e-wallets such as Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, where a debit or credit card is used. One in three credit card payments and 13% of debit card payments are now made on mobile devices.

At 29.2% (down 2.9 percentage points), cash was the second most common way to pay in person. Twint payments from bank accounts – mobile payments in the true sense of the word – increased only slightly to 7.2% in face-to-face business. According to the Monitor, there was strong growth in this respect between November 2022 and May 2023.

Some 84% of those surveyed for the Monitor rated access to cash as good. However, 46% noted a deterioration in recent years, according to the Monitor authors.

When it came to the question of abolishing cash, the proportion of undecided respondents fell significantly. Some 44.3% were clearly against the abolition of cash, with the proportion being higher among older people. However, rejection also rose significantly among younger people. some 61% were in favour of introducing an obligation to accept cash. A representative sample of 1,700 people were surveyed for the Monitor.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].