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[22]Covid-19
Will coronavirus change Germans’ love of cash?
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Cash and German bank cards on 25 March 2020
By Krystin Arneson 21st May 2020
‘Cash is king’ has long been the motto of German consumers and small
business owners – but Covid-19 is bringing rapid change.
G

Germany might be known for its proud culture of technological
innovation, but it's not uncommon for newcomers and tourists to be
caught out at cafes and small businesses that only take cash.

Although online and mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay have made
inroads in recent years, for many German businesses owners – and
consumers, too – cash is king. This is especially true at smaller
establishments, like the corner shop and neighbourhood restaurant. It’s
a habit rooted in a thrifty culture with a preference for tangible
spending.

Covid-19 has probably changed German payment behaviour faster than any single
technology ever has - Georg Hauer

Yet since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, cash payments have,
for the first time, been actively discouraged in Germany. “Covid-19 has
probably changed German payment behaviour faster than any single
technology ever has,” says Georg Hauer, general manager of the
Germany-Austria-Switzerland region at N26, a Berlin-based online
banking start-up.

For many Germans, using cash isn't just a personal preference; it's a
cultural value that they've grown up with — and one tied closely to a
national value with centuries-old roots.

Cash as a national value

The longstanding preference for cash “is based on an underlying
preference for the supposedly concrete versus the abstract”, says
Dortmund-based historian Robert Muschalla, who curated 2018’s Saving –
History of a German Virtue exhibition at Berlin’s German History
Museum. Muschalla says this ideology emerged in the late 18th Century,
when Germans were socialised to prioritise a tangible result from their
labour over more abstract forms of exchange, such as IOUs, as the
economy evolved.

A century later, with worker-employer clashes increasingly common,
Muschalla says encouraging saving was seen as a way to reduce factory
tensions. “The motto was: ‘Those who work hard and save and have
something to lose do not make a revolution’,” he says. Thrifty values
persisted through periods of economic turbulence after both World Wars.
After World War Two, he adds, savings banks opposed the introduction of
consumer credit, fearing it would damage saving culture.

By the time bank cards were introduced for much of Europe and the US,
Germans were still just fine dealing with cash. This belief has stuck
around: ‘card payment’ in Germany still largely means debit card – and
German-style ‘credit cards’ largely don't accrue long-term debt but
deduct the balance in full from a user's bank account the next month.
The German habit of saving dates back centuries - and has endured
through economically turbulent times

The German habit of saving dates back centuries - and has endured
through economically turbulent times

Growing up in Bavaria in the 1980s and ‘90s, Anna Steigemann, an
assistant professor in urban studies at the Technical University of
Berlin, remembers going with her family to take cash out of the bank
once a week. Her father would withdraw it on Thursdays, they’d go
grocery shopping on Fridays and to the market on Saturday, and the
remainder saw the family through the week.

Maik Klotz, 44, co-founder of Payment & Banking, which reports on
fintech innovation, says his parents taught him as a child to value
cash. Debit-style card payments, if available, weren't popular when he
was growing up. “Back then, the fear of losing track of things and the
fear of abuse was high," he says, adding that his parents still remain
sceptical of card payments.

A changing landscape

In recent years, the German payment landscape has evolved. In 2017, an
ongoing Bundesbank study tracking consumer payments noted a slow but
steady shift in habits, but showed that 88% of Germans wanted to
continue using cash in the future. The same study found that Germans
carried an average of €107 ($116, £95) in their wallets; the year
before, a European Banking Commission [26]report found Germans led
their Eurozone neighbours in carrying cash.

In Germany, restaurant visits and groceries are paid in cash more than twice
as often as the European average - Holger Sachse

It was in 2018 that card payments made in stores overtook cash payments
in value for the first time, the Cologne-based EHI Retail Institute
[27]reported, by fractions of a percentage (48.6% for card, 48.3% for
cash). Yet cash was used in 76% of all retail transactions, still
dominating smaller purchases. “In Germany, restaurant visits and
groceries are paid in cash more than twice as often as the European
average," Boston Consulting Group expert Holger Sachse told [28]The
Local in 2018.

Young Germans, in particular, are looking for new payment alternatives,
the Bundesbank’s 2017 [29]study showed. Yet there are [30]concerns that
transitioning to a cashless culture would alienate both the older
generation and lower-income people who might be unbanked. Many point to
lingering concerns over privacy, especially among older consumers.

"Many older Germans still remember a previous era of state surveillance
all too well. This is why many Germans continue to guard their personal
data and privacy fiercely, and have been less trusting than many of
their other European counterparts when it comes to adopting new tech
solutions," says Hauer.
For the first time, some shops and businesses are actively discouraging
cash payments

For the first time, some shops and businesses are actively discouraging
cash payments

But older consumers aren’t the only hold-outs. Small businesses still
prefer the simplicity of cash – even millennial owners. Sami
Gottschalk, 28, owns MINE Salon in Berlin’s arty, alternative Kreuzberg
neighbourhood. The hair salon has always been card-free because he
finds it easier to avoid the constant juggle between what’s in the cash
drawer and what’s gone through on cards. “This is how I’ve worked
before in a previous hair salon, and I thought it was easier for me to
keep going with this method,” he says.

At the salon, which is popular with both Berliners and expats, he's
noticed that German clientele tend to carry more cash than Americans or
Brits. Cashless customers are asked to withdraw money from a nearby
ATM, something Gottschalk says people generally don't mind, though it
can catch his foreign clients by surprise.

With Covid-19, a cultural shift to cards

Yet since Covid-19 began spreading around the world, Germany’s
on-the-ground reliance on cash has been upended. In a few short weeks,
cash went in many places from being expected to stigmatised or banned
altogether. Of course, Germany's not the only country where cash
reliance has dropped as a result of the pandemic: One [31]survey in the
UK, where 50% of people are already estimated to be cashless, suggested
that 75% of people were using less cash due to the outbreak. However,
the shift is especially noticeable in cash-loving Germany.

“[Covid-19] was the first time Germany’s biggest retailers all began
actively promoting the use of contactless payments,” says N26's Hauer.
“From grocery stores to petrol stations, and in-store signs to even
purchased radio spots, big retailers encouraged Germans to change their
behaviour.” Smaller retailers who only used to accept cash have
pivoted, too: "Not only have most of them started accepting card
payments, quite a handful of them are actually only accepting card
payments now, especially here in Berlin.”
Before Covid-19, Germans used cash to pay for groceries more often than
other European counterparts

Before Covid-19, Germans used cash to pay for groceries more often than
other European counterparts

A [32]Bundesbank survey has already shown Covid-19-driven changes in
Germany’s consumer behaviour, aided by a change in late March that
[33]doubled the limit for contactless transactions at the till to €50.
(The UK, similarly, [34]raised the limit from £30 to £45 from April to
drive card payments.). By late April, 43% of respondents said they had
changed their payment behaviour, compared to 25% at the start of the
month. Sixty-eight percent of those who changed their behaviour said
they were now more likely to pay with a card.

Another [35]recent survey, taken by the German Payment System
Initiative, revealed that 57% of Germans use debit and credit cards now
more than they did before the pandemic, and almost half have
“significantly reduced” their cash use. At N26, Hauer says the bank
recorded 56% fewer withdrawals from ATMs in the first month of
Germany’s lockdown compared to the previous month.

Since I’m always paying with debit, I have no idea how much money I’m
actually spending right now - Anna Steigemann

For Anna Steigemann, the transition has been tough. “Now I’m in a
situation where I go to [natural supermarket] Bio Company and buy a
single pretzel or roll and pay [for] even that with a debit card
because they ask for it,” she says. “Since I’m always paying with
debit, I have no idea how much money I’m actually spending right now….
It’s a very unstable and insecure time now anyway and losing control
over my account right now makes me even more insecure.”

Following historical precedent, Germans appear to be responding to the
current crisis by spending more carefully – and saving. Hauer says an
internal bank survey found that 55% of Germans (taken from a sample of
10,000 people across the bank’s main markets) had “already changed
their financial priorities for 2020”. About two-thirds of respondents
said they were putting aside more money than before the crisis.

Thomas Giese and Marion Coulondre opened Bichou Cafe, a French comfort
food outpost in Berlin’s gentrifying, eclectic southern district of
Neukölln, in 2016. "When we opened, very few businesses in Neukölln
were offering card payment,” Coulondre says. "People were totally used
to paying cash, and as we were a small neighbourhood café, this was not
an issue at all to not accept cards. It was just more simple for us and
cheaper to start off like this.”

They started taking cards at the beginning of 2019. And, while they
continue to accept cash, have seen more customers than ever pay by card
during the pandemic – even regulars who always use cash. Yet, income is
down. “At the moment we have as many card payments as on a regular day
but sometimes half the revenue,” Coulondre says. Looking to the future,
she anticipates an increase in card payments as the trend she's seen
over the last two years continues.

Post-Covid: back to cash?
It’s hard to imagine cash regaining its former throne in German
consumer life. In Hauer’s view, Covid-19 provided a nudge that society
was ready for. “All this together helped drive a change in behaviour:
the speed and magnitude of the change tells us that it wasn’t difficult
to make, but people needed a strong reason to break an old habit.”

He says N26 believes that Covid-19 will “accelerate” the way to a
future in which “cash payments are the exception rather than the norm”.
Ingo Limburg, head of the German Payment System Initiative, told [36]DW
on 7 May he expects greater card use to continue: "We assume that the
trend toward card payments will increase disproportionately.”

At MINE, Gottschalk is sticking with cash for the moment – with hand
sanitiser ready at the cash register – but he's open to change. “I
don’t think people will actually go back to cash as often as they
were,” he says. "It's true now that [card payment is] starting more and
more, and it’s definitely something we might have to consider in the
future. I don’t think we can keep on going using cash only.”
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