Harming the decent majority in order punish a misbehaving minority would be like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer – and breaking the table it is on in the process. Finally, the fintech alliance promises that, with its innovative digital-payment solutions, it can ease the conduct of financial transactions. Customers would no longer need to carry wads of cash or search for ATMs.
But it is an open question whether the still highly fragmented digital-payment sector will help customers more than the companies offering the payment solutions. There is one more major problem with the arguments for a cashless society: most people, at least in the eurozone, don’t want it.