Will virtual euros soon replace coins and banknotes in our wallets, or more exactly our mobile phones?
The fall in cash spending continues to accelerate.
In Sweden, many merchants no longer accept them and the country plans to become completely “
cash-free
” from 2025. Cash in circulation already represented only 1% of the Scandinavian country's GDP in 2018, 4% in the United Kingdom , compared to 11% in the euro zone.
A year later, cashless transactions had jumped 8% in Europe.
And the Covid-19 pandemic has further precipitated the movement.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is already considering removing the small red coins of 1 and 2 cents.
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The change in mentality is going very quickly.
Two years ago, most central banks were opposed to the idea of virtual currency.
Today, almost all of them are thinking about it, and several of them have already done so, such as those from China, Sweden or the Bahamas.
The think-tank
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