One in 4 Swedes abandons physical wallet in 2017, payment apps just as popular

One in four Swedes no longer carries cash and the preferred payment method is via card, said internet foundation IIS, citing Insight Intelligence's fifth annual survey of payment habits in Sweden. Payment apps are as widely used as cash and Swish is the most popular app, but this is mostly used for peer-to-peer transactions, with many Swedes not even realising they can use the app in physical stores.

In 2017, 43 percent of woman aged 16 to 29 used payment apps weekly or more often, compared with 33 percent of men in the same age group. Nearly 50 percent of woman in that age category doubt they will be using a physical wallet for their money in five years' time, which is twice as many as the number of men of the same age. Already, 24 percent of Swedes did not carry cash in 2017, up from 8 percent in 2013.

Cards are still the most regularly used payment method, with 97 percent of Swedes using a card at least once a week. Card payments are normal in most shops and in restaurants, even if the bill is less than SEK 100. Only 3 percent would pay by cash for such a small sum.

The survey found that 83 percent of respondents use Swish, which was the most frequently used payment app in the survey. Payment apps are used just as regularly as cash, with 25 percent using an app at least once a week. This compares with just 3 percent of respondents using apps in 2014, when more than half of people used cash.

Insight Intelligence found that 77 percent of respondents prefer apps for peer-to-peer payments and 40 percent prefer paying by cash at a market, but this is the only situation where cash is the preferred method. Eighteen percent prefer paying their parking charge by app.

Swish has made fewer inroads into shopping, for lack of infrastructure and because people do not even realise that they can use it in physical stores. The survey found 59 percent do not pay using their mobile phone in a shop where that option is available, while 17 percent did not even realise this was possible. Most said they simply did not want to use their mobile phones as a payment method.

Turning to e-commerce, 35 percent of customers pay by card and 32 percent via invoice. When it comes to rent an other regular servic bills, 82 percent of people still pay by giro. While 73 percent of respondents said they had heard of Bitcoin, only 1 percent had used it. Nearly half (48%) said they did not trust cryptocurrencies.