Stockholm’s street magazine vendors no longer need to ask if passers-by can spare some change anymore – they take cards instead. In the most cashless society on the planet, sellers of Sweden’s answer to the Big Issue have been equipped with portable card readers to accept virtual payments.
“Swedes are pretty trusting and we’re used to embracing new technology so this was the perfect solution,” says Stolt. “The cashless society campaign we’re seeing in Sweden is definitely a good move as far as we are concerned – it’s unstoppable.”
Abba the Museum has operated cash-free since opening in May 2013 and Ulvaeus says Sweden “could and should be the first cashless society in the world”.
Four out of five purchases are now made electronically in Sweden, according to associate professor of industrial dynamics at Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology, Niklas Arvidsson – and going totally cash-free is the next step. “Banks and merchants invested heavily in card payment systems in the 1990s and these days consumers are used to it,” says Arvidsson.
