Would you go cash-free? Britons less keen than Europeans to give up cash

A third (34 per cent) of Europeans would go cash-free if given the choice, according to the ING International Survey Mobile Banking 2017.

But people in the UK were the most reluctant to give up cash completely among the countries surveyed, with just one in five (21 per cent) having the appetite to ditch notes and coins altogether.

A fifth (20 per cent) of people surveyed in the UK said they rarely use cash, the research among 15,000 people across 15 countries found.

Across Europe, the study found a continuing decline in cash use, with more than half of people (54 per cent) having used less cash in the past 12 months and 78 per cent of this group expecting to use it even less over the next 12 months.

The survey found 30 per cent of people in Germany and France would go cashless, as would 41 per cent of people in Italy and 42 per cent in Turkey – the country where the appetite for going cashless was strongest.

Nearly one in four (24 per cent) people surveyed in Australia would go cashless, as would 38 per cent in the United States.

ING senior economist Ian Bright said: “For many, cash is no longer king. The days of rushing to the ATM so you have enough money for the weekend are long gone. Card and even mobile phone payments are increasingly being seen as safe substitutes.

“Despite this, cash is not likely to die out soon. Four in five consumers say they have used cash in the last three days. Many would not want to go completely cashless and some prefer the privacy and physical sensation of cold hard cash.”

Here are the percentages of consumers in each country who would go completely cash-free, according to ING:

:: UK, 21 per cent

:: Netherlands, 23 per cent

:: Austria, 27 per cent

:: Luxembourg, 28 per cent

:: France, 30 per cent

:: Germany, 30 per cent

:: Belgium, 33 per cent

:: Czech Republic, 36 per cent

:: Spain, 37 per cent

:: Romania, 38 per cent

:: Poland, 40 per cent