Almost one in three Belgians has difficulty obtaining cash

In Belgium, electronic payments have supplanted cash in everyday life, according to the European Central Bank. But the lack of distributors and bank branches is a problem for us, a specificity as well.

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Journalist in the Economy department

By Amandine Cloot

Published on 20/12/2022 at 16:39Reading time: 3 mins

Lhe ongoing digitalization of the economy is affecting just about every aspect of our daily lives, including how we spend money. It is important to measure the behavior of citizens at this level. Every three years, the European Central Bank (ECB) therefore conducts the survey in the euro zone (among 39,765 respondents): do people pay more in cash or in cash in physical shops, how do they exchange between them, what about the evolution of e-commerce? Etc.

Main finding of the study: in 2022, Europeans will use fewer banknotes for their transactions – the proportion of cash exchanged on a daily basis has dropped substantially since 2019 (from 72% to 59%) – but cash remains the main way to spend money in “real” life (stores and person to person).

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