Initiative wants to stop the demise of ‘unfashionable’ cash

© Keystone / Christian Beutler

A committee worried that e-payments will lead to financial surveillance or systemic malfunctions in Switzerland has launched an initiative to prevent any future phasing-out of cash.

At the campaign launch on Tuesday, the Swiss Freedom Movement said their goal was to make ensure the limitations placed on cash withdrawals and payments in other countries don’t make their way to Switzerland.

“Cash is a symbol of freedom, independence, and security,” said Richard Kohler, president of the group. It’s a simple and accessible alternative to electronic payments, he said, for older people or for people who opposed e-payments from a philosophical conviction.

Spokesman Charly Pache added that phasing out cash in favour of online payments could open the door to “permanent surveillance of our spending and our actions” – the extreme scenario being something like a China-style “social credit” system, he said.

Pache also claimed that hacks and malfunctions in IT systems could leave large amounts of people simply “unable to make transactions”.

As such, the text of the initiative wants to make federal authorities legally bound to ensure sufficient cash quantities are maintained in Switzerland, and that any future replacing of the Swiss franc by another currency be put to public vote.

By this last worry, the group is presumably referring to the current project of the Swiss National Bank to make a digital version of the franc. The SNB says this digital currency would only be available for transactions by financial institutions.

A survey by the SNB in June meanwhile found that while the numbers of debit and credit cards, and the number of mobile payment apps in the country are increasing, cash remains a popular payment option: 97% of respondents said they kept cash in their wallets or at home, to cover day-to-day expenses.

The group has until February 2023 to collect the 100,000 signatures to put the issue before parliament and a public vote.