Which European countries are heading toward becoming cashless societies?

The Nordic countries are leading the way for adopting a future without cash transactions, while Armenia, Georgia, and Germany fall behind, according to a recent analysis presented by Euronews.

Europe’s Nordic countries are more prepared for a future where cash is no longer used in transactions than the rest of Europe.

Finansplassen, a Norwegian finance information site, aggregated data from the World Bank, Eurostat, and other publicly-available data banks to look at how adapted each European country was to let people pay without cash.

They evaluated the number of ATMs and payment terminals available per 100,000 people, the limit that cardholders could spend while contactless shopping, and the number of people who are online banking.

Fewer ATMs means the country is less reliant on cash and a higher number of payment terminals means there’s a “greater infrastructure,” for electronic transfers.

Their analysis showed that Norway is the most prepared for a cashless future: it has one of the lowest numbers of ATMs and around 96 per cent of the population does online banking.

Finland and Denmark come second and third in the analysis. The Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania, Cyprus, and Switzerland rounded off the top 10 in the analysis while Armenia, Georgia, and Germany were the least adapted to cashless systems.