[wheels]

Since nobody's chimed in here from Germany yet:

Germany's broadly a hold-out. Particularly a lot of restaurants, bars and clubs are still cash-only, and some smaller shops definitely prefer cash. Used cars are, interestingly, almost always cash-only. Person to person transactions (i.e. buying something you pick up in person) are almost always cash. Open air markets (produce, flea markets) are always cash.

Electronic payments are becoming more accepted, but it's wise to almost always have some cash on hand.

Cash retains a certain appeal for privacy reasons, and, let's be honest, for businesses avoiding paying their taxes. I'm actually happy cash remains. I don't like the idea of everything I ever buy being recorded. I also don't mind when e.g. going out that I have to consciously get more cash from the ATM when I've blown through my evening budget.

This is in amusing contrast with my trip to Sweden last year, where I pulled out the equivalent of €100 for emergencies, and had trouble getting rid of it in the week and a half there since most places didn't seem to even take cash.

[chironjit]

To add, Germany is an outlier when it comes to cashless payment adoption, even (and especially when) compared to its neighbours.

Overall, our experience is that it is impossible to be out and about cashless in Germany as there is no telling which bar / beergarten / restaurant / shop only accepts cash.

[cedilla]

It's changing in larger cities. I only have to use cash very rarely now - in small Döner or pizza shops that evade taxes.

[OfSanguineFire]

Germany’s slow adoption of cashless payment is, or at least was, shared with Austria, and even to some degree with Slovenia (which takes after Austria in many ways).

[poorlyknit]

I recently visited Dublin from Germany and was positively surprised that they also still use cash in a lot of places. I even saw two pro-cash posters that read something like

    Using cash, we only spend 70% of what we spend using electronic payments

and the other one was privacy-related. I agree with both of them and your comment that it's easier to keep track of your expenses with cash.

[microtheo]

Yes, I agree, I was going to write the same. But to be honest, I like cash. The feeling of the cash flowing out of your hand is much more palpable than when you use a card :) In Switzerland there is a national app for sending cash to friends that is really handy and popular (TWINT)

[okeuro49]

> The feeling of the cash flowing out of your hand is much more palpable than when you use a card :)

I prefer using credit card, as it's easy to lose track of how much I'm spending with cash. With card, I have a statement at the end of the month so I can see what I have spent.

[ShamelessC]

An app for sending cash? How does that work exactly? Out of curiosity.

[microtheo]

Yes, I meant money. Sorry, english is not my first language... It uses the phone number and is linked to your bank account. So it is an automated and instantaneous way of sending money to another swiss bank account. You can also ask someone for money and they can agree to transfer the sum.

[ShamelessC]

Not a problem, I feel bad now for having asked. My confusion was actually more from that being fairly common app now in America (CashApp, VenMo, PayPal, etc.) and so wasn't sure if you were describing something unusual from my perspective or simply weren't aware or...

In any case, it's mostly fine to use "cash" to mean "any form of cash", although I guess this case in particular was just barely ambiguous enough for me to be confused.

[CalRobert]

I assume they mean for sending money instead of the actual physical notes or coins.

[theshrike79]

Germany is a weird country. On the surface they are the top of the line in technology.

On the other hand they still prefer paper money, fax machines and paper forms instead of their electronic versions.

[bad_alloc]

Agreed, a hybrid system is nice. What bothers me are bakeries getting upset at you when trying to pay <10€ and you dare to attempt to use a card.