Lena Halldenius presents the first version of an article from the research project Cash. In this project (funded by Formas), Lena Halldenius and Moa Petersén studies how the digitisation of the payment market and the move away from cash use impacts socio-economically vulnerable groups.

The transition away from the use of cash – coins and paper money – in everyday transactions and purchases is a global phenomenon, but the speed, trajectory, and consequences vary between different countries and contexts. The move towards cashless economies needs to be understood in the intersection of several things. These include governments’ interest in controlling and monitoring money supplies and transactions, as well as managing costs associated with the printing and distribution of physical money. A challenge for states is that innovations in the development of digital payment technologies are partly driven by commercial interests and that cashless economies represent a shift in the control of money and transactions, away from governments and their central banks to commercial banks and other private financial actors. Another challenge is that the cashless economy comes with poorly understood costs for people who live in digital exclusion and for various reasons – like poverty or disability – depend on cash in their daily life. The experiences of this group – those who are cash dependent for reasons of socioeconomic disadvantage – are the focus of this study. The empirical focus is Sweden, where a stated political aim is to be world leading in digitization and where cash use is lower than maybe anywhere else. 

This is a text seminar. The first version of an article is available on request from lena.halldenius@mrs.lu.se. Lena will start with a presentation of the main contents.