European Nations Such As Sweden And Denmark Are “Eradicating Cash”

electronic-euro-1728x800_c-1024x474By Michael Snyder

Did you know that 95 percent of all retail sales in Sweden are cashless?  And did you know that the government of Denmark has a stated goal of “eradicating cash” by the year 2030?  All over the world, we are seeing a relentless march toward a cashless society, and nowhere is this more true than in northern Europe.  In Sweden, hundreds of bank branches no longer accept or dispense cash, and thousands of ATM machines have been permanently removed.

At this point, bills and coins only account for just 2 percent of the Swedish economy, and many stores no longer take cash at all.  The notion of a truly “cashless society” was once considered to be science fiction, but now we are being told that it is “inevitable”, and authorities insist that it will enable them to thwart criminals, terrorists, drug runners, money launderers and tax evaders.  But what will we give up in the process?


In Sweden, the transition to a cashless society is being enthusiastically embraced.  The following is an excerpt from a New York Times article that was published on Saturday…

Parishioners text tithes to their churches. Homeless street vendors carry mobile credit-card readers. Even the Abba Museum, despite being a shrine to the 1970s pop group that wrote “Money, Money, Money,” considers cash so last-century that it does not accept bills and coins.

Few places are tilting toward a cashless future as quickly as Sweden, which has become hooked on the convenience of paying by app and plastic.

To me, giving money in church electronically seems so bizarre.  But it is starting to happen here in the United States, and in Sweden some churches collect most of their tithes and offerings this way

During a recent Sunday service, the church’s bank account number was projected onto a large screen. Worshipers pulled out cellphones and tithed through an app called Swish, a payment system set up by Sweden’s biggest banks that is fast becoming a rival to cards.

Other congregants lined up at a special “Kollektomat” card machine, where they could transfer funds to various church operations. Last year, out of 20 million kronor in tithes collected, more than 85 percent came in by card or digital payment.

And of course it isn’t just Sweden that is rapidly transitioning to a cashless society.  Over in Denmark, government officials have a goal “to completely do away with paper money” by the year 2030

Sweden is not the only country interested in eradicating cash. Its neighbor, Denmark, is also making great strides to lessen the circulation of banknotes in the country.

Two decades ago, roughly 80 percent of Danish citizens relied on hard cash while shopping. Fast forward to today, that figure has dropped dramatically to 25 percent.

We’re interested in getting rid of cash,” said Matas IT Director Thomas Grane. “The handling, security and everything else is expensive; so, definitely we want to push digital payments, and that’s of course why we introduced mobile payments to help this process.”

Eventually, establishments may soon have the right to reject cash- a practice that is common in Sweden. Government officials have set a 2030 deadline to completely do away with paper money.

Could you imagine a world where you couldn’t use cash for anything?

This is the direction things are going – especially in Europe.

As I have written about previously, cash transactions of more than 2,500 euros have already been banned in Spain, and France and Italy have both banned all cash transactions of more than 1,000 euros.

Little by little, cash is being eradicated, and what we have seen so far is just the beginning.  417 billion cashless transactions were conducted in 2014, and the final number for 2015 is projected to be much higher.

Banks like this change, because it enables them to make more money due to the fees that they collect from credit cards and debit cards.  And governments like this change because electronic payments enable them to watch, track and monitor what we are all doing much more easily.

These days, very rarely does anyone object to what is happening.  Instead, most of us just seem to accept that this change is “inevitable”, and we are being assured that it will be for the better.  And no matter where in the world you go, the propaganda seems to be the same.  For example, the following comes from an Australian news source

AND so we prepare to turn the page to fresh year — 2016, a watershed year in which Australia will accelerate towards becoming a genuine cashless society.

The cashless society will be a new world free of $1 and $2 coins, or $5 or $10 bank notes. A new world in which all commercial transactions, from buying an i-pad or a hamburger to playing the poker machines, purchasing a newspaper, paying household bills or picking up the dry-cleaning, will be paid for electronically.

And in that same article the readers are told that Australia will likely be “a fully cashless society” by 2022…

Research by Westpac Bank predicts Australia will be a fully cashless society by 2022 — just six years away. Already half of all commercial payments are now made electronically.

Even in some of the poorest areas on the entire globe we are seeing a move toward a cashless society.  In 2015, banks in India made major progress on this front, and income tax rebates are being considered by the government as an incentive “to encourage people to move away from cash transactions”.

Would a truly cashless society reduce crime and make all of our lives much more efficient?

Maybe.

But what would we have to give up?

To me, America is supposed to be a place where we can go where we want and do what we want without the government constantly monitoring us.  If people choose to use cashless forms of payment that is one thing, but if we are all required to go to such a system I fear that it could result in the loss of tremendous amounts of freedom and liberty.

And it is all too easy to imagine a world where a government-sponsored form of “identification” would be required to use any form of electronic payment.  This would give the government complete control over who could use “the system” and who could not.  The potential for various forms of coercion and tyranny in such a scenario is obvious.

What would you do if you could not buy, sell, get a job or open a bank account without proper “identification” someday?  What you simply give in to whatever the government was demanding of you at the time even if it went against your fundamental beliefs?

That is certainly something to think about.

Many will cheer as the world makes a rapid transition to a cashless society, but I will not.  I believe that a truly cashless system would open the door for great evil, and I don’t want any part of it.

What about you?

Would you welcome a cashless society?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.


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19 Comments on "European Nations Such As Sweden And Denmark Are “Eradicating Cash”"

  1. An all cashless society is a rockerfeller/rothchilds wet dream – the use of ‘internet numbers’ allows them to make even more, by not having to waste paper and ink – of course they won’t get to see there demonic symbols all over the paper money)
    END the FED and replace it w/ a more humane system – no usury ( this is an askanazi tool coupled w/ taxes keeps the common horde from having anything al agenda 2030).

  2. Banks already have too much power. If they decide you are not to have access to your own money, all they have to do is cancel all your cards. In Cyprus they decided to empty people’s bank accounts on behalf of the government and merely helped themselves. Your savings in deposit accounts are already deemed to be assets of the banks and when the bank loses them, you have no legal redress. They are coming for your cash, next it will be your gold and silver to make the tyranny complete.

    • A snafu in an electronic payment system can upend your life.
      Your accounts get frozen. You are unable to purchase anything. Fees mount. Endless claims must be filed.

      • Sweden and Denmark eradicated: Exactly, just another hidden hand “refugee” melee

        No snafu’s with the Cabal, the no-cash agenda gets you zero at the till, locked out of the system at the Swish of a flick, ’tis just another Protocol party trick, behind schedule they be, 2008 was the target date you see, accelerating the obummernation, the banksters now double down, visa and mastercard the jokers in the Chosen One’s crown.

  3. It will become a requirement that upon registering a birth, by law, a bank account registration number will have to be allocated to every newborn for life, whereby ALL transactions of trade, exchange or gift will be under permanent scrutiny from government til the day you die. There really will be nowhere to hide. It’s not about money, it’s about unassailable control. Thank god I won’t be alive to see myself become assimilated into this futuristic method of poorly-disguised slavery.

    With this in place, added to current surveillance programmes, there will be no possibility of building any organised resistance against government.

    For the 99%, this is absolute folly!

    • The sun will someday emit a series of incredibly powerful electromagnetic pulses which will destroy every electronic circuit simultaneously and permanently. Even ‘hardened’ military electronics can be wiped if the pulses are powerful enough.

      At the risk of being seen as a Luddite, I say it can’t happen soon enough. Truly, it’s humanity’s only hope against the psychopathic oligarchs.

  4. I’m sure I’m not the only one that sees the massive fraud potential here!

  5. Have we considered the implications of a cashless society when we are
    told that negative interest rates will soon be forced upon us?

    The fees currently charged for credit and debit transactions already
    give some indication as to how much we prefer to use cash.

    But surely, depositors will prefer to use cash even more
    — if they put $100 in the bank, and
    — then they find there are only $98 left.

    In such a case, depositors are certainly going to think of taking their
    money out of the banks.

    So, before negative interest rates are imposed, the obvious solution for
    the banks is to make sure that savers cannot pay for anything in cash.

    So, we should expect the following one-two punch:
    — first they prohibit cash transactions,
    — then they hit the public with negative interest rates.

    Who is talking about this one-two punch? People in the corridors
    of power, that’s who:
    — Sweden’s Riksbank has already cut its interest rates below zero;
    — Andy Haldane of the UK’s Monetary Policy Committee has already
    admitted that abolishing cash may have to precede negative
    interest rates; and
    — Former Fed chair Ben Bernanke agrees that the Fed is likely to
    implement negative interest rates soon.

    • “In such a case, depositors are certainly going to think of taking their
      money out of the banks.”

      In a cashless regime, you will not be able to take your money out of the system. By then it will only be electronic print. It will have no substance. They will of course let you change accounts but it’s not as if you can physically withdraw anything except for a credit note allocating where your digits are to be sent.

      Your EVERY transaction will be electronic and it will convey all that data into a central base. Your entire life will be self-censored out of fear that you might raise a red-flag, and there will be no alternate, common instrument with which to stay under the radar, as their efforts to destroy gold and silver gain more and more traction. God! They’ll know about every object you buy or, have ever bought, and with that extend their powers in line with the tax-man. You will have no advantage or discretion in your private affairs if they involve the use of monetary transactions

      I think we can now be sure that not only does the “NWO” exist, but we can see that it’s actually in its final phase, and barring a miracle, there’s not much we can do about it. Anyone who’s thinking about a universal revolt can forget it. They would know about it in real time and shut down anyone who had a half a chance of informing, organising and uniting the people in any successful numbers.

      We’ve allowed them to incrementally write laws that protect their power while restricting our social and civil freedoms, to which we have a right no matter what THEY think..

      The frightening thing is that if the world goes cashless, we’ve lost!

  6. Edgardo L. Perez-De Leon | December 28, 2015 at 1:19 pm |

    Without paper money and coins we need to turn to bartering or surrender our privacy to the state.

  7. America leads the World in “cashless” exchanges. The criminals that rob us don’t use cash, they just steel.

  8. This is more about control than it is about money. Do the banksters really think that anyone believes them when they say that a cashless society will stop criminals? Going cashless makes it easier for the criminals to steal money. Of course we all know who the real criminals are.

  9. I get a laugh out of the part about ” it will stop drug running and money laundering”. I suspect most of the people reading this article understand who the biggest drug runner in the world is taking that title away from the Brits during the opium wars. And who are the really BIG money launderers?…. It’s not Joes barber shop in Harlem laundering those billions! I consider a cashless society and geo engineering [ chem trails ] the two most dangerous things going on in the world today.

  10. Then next, they will have smart cars like Bruce Willis’ cab in the 5th element. It will detect all of your traffic violations and issue points and fines as needed, automatically. No need for the hassle of going to court anymore!

    A cashless society will get rid of Craigskist, buying and selling used goods, people who want to remain private will lose that, a cashless society will be a total nightmare to those who want freedom. It must be opposed as vehemently as attacks on the 1st and 2nd amendment. A cashless society will be our last leg, then it will be total enslavement to the government and banks.

    • ..”And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:17
      ..”Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” Revelation 13:18

  11. The way things are being pushed by the psychopathic agents of the New World Order, it won’t take ages for this to happen, maybe 10 or just 20 years! It might sound cliched but as a Christian Orthodox I am not at all surprised by this “news” as it was prophecised almost 2000 years ago in St John’s Revelation in the Holy Bible (NT). Plastic cards will eventually be phased out – as they will be stolen instead of cash and the PIN numbers will be extracted by force e.g. kidnapping – and a “new” system will be in place, namely having a microchip or some sort of mark on the right hand or forehead, for easy access to financial, medical and other details. It is not advisable to take any of these even if you are going to starve, better die unointed than get a few years more on this raped planet. My advice, if you are not a Christian, get baptised, repent and pray. Your soul is eternal, your body isn’t. Good luck!

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