The use of banknotes and coins is decreasing but remains the preferred means of payment for the French to pay for purchases in supermarkets, restaurants or in small shops, analyzes the Banque de France on Thursday. Isolating data published in a study by the European Central Bank (ECB) at the end of last year, the Banque de France assures that cash “will remain, in 2022, the most widely used means of payment in terms of volume at points of sale in France”. Cash represents 50% of payments in France in the 2022 study. But the trajectory is down, after 57% in 2019 and 68% in 2016.
In addition, “many households value the possibility of paying in cash”, underlines the central bank, 57% of consumers considering that it is important to have this possibility. The card continues its irresistible rise between 2019 and 2022 (43% of payments last year), driven by the rise of online commerce, itself accelerated by confinements and the democratization of contactless payment. The latter represents 51% of card payments at physical points of sale. The check continues to decline (4%), now closely followed by mobile applications (2%).
The supposed abandonment of cash in favor of other means of payment, current or potentially future such as the digital euro, is regularly the subject of controversy on social networks. “We will not give up coins and banknotes,” Banque de France governor François Villeroy de Galhau insisted on Saturday on TV5 Monde. The number of ATMs is down sharply in France, with 47,853 ATMs at the end of 2021, according to the Banque de France, i.e. nearly 10% less than at the end of 2018.
A project to pool their ATMs by BNPParibas, Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel Federal Alliance, called “Cash services”, will further accentuate this decline. The ECB is also one of the best advocates of cash: according to it, it guarantees respect for privacy, ensures social inclusion, helps to monitor expenditure – a strong argument in times of inflation – and constitutes a fast and safe payment method.