Even an ordinary hot dog in Copenhagen can be paid with a credit card
Despite the cold and cloudy weather, hot dog sales from a small kiosk on a street in central Copenhagen are brisk. Not only tourists but also Danes working nearby or out shopping enjoy snacking on a hot sausage with cucumber and onion.
Andreas Sigsgaard has been selling hot dogs here for over a year. As soon as a customer places an order, Andreas already knows how they will pay: tourists pull out wallets, Danes – credit cards. Even small purchases, such as a hot dog costing around 40 kroner (about 5 euros), residents of the kingdom usually pay by card.
Most passersby have to think hard about when they last used cash. "With a card it's so easy," says one woman near the hot dog stand. "I don't carry any cash anymore," adds a man standing nearby. Only when collecting donations does he sometimes have problems: "Then I have nothing to put in the box."
In many other European countries, for example in Germany, such a situation is still unimaginable. There everyone carries cash. Moreover, many Germans are opposed to banks having information about all their financial transactions. A society without coins and banknotes is very practical, but we should not forget that it is also a way for banks to reduce costs and earn even more, critics say.
Most Danes do not seem to be very concerned that banks know exactly which of their customers bought what and when. "You have to trust the banks," a Copenhagen resident explains to DW. There is no perfect payment method, and cashless payment, after all, has many advantages.
Hot dog vendor Andreas Sigsgaard shares this view: "When we cash out at the end of the day, we don't have to count a lot of money – that saves time, and it's also harder to make a mistake." Moreover, for street trading it is safer to have less cash in the till.
Large stores do not have this problem. But they also advocate for further electronization of retail trade. For example, the Danish chain Matas introduced mobile phone payment in all its branches a few months ago. The customer scans the product's barcode, confirms the amount, – done.
It is hardly possible to pay even faster. "We want to get rid of cash," says Thomas Gran, IT manager at Matas. The hassle with coins and banknotes, security measures – all this is additional expense for retailers: "Definitely, we want to push out cash payments, which is why we introduced mobile payment."
And the Danes welcome these changes. About a third of shoppers have already installed and use the mobile app MobilePay. It is often used for personal transactions – to transfer money to a friend or pay a vendor at a flea market.
The share of cash transactions is steadily declining and this trend cannot be reversed. Twenty years ago, Danes paid for 80% of purchases with cash; today that share is less than 25%. Danish stores, except for grocery stores, may soon be allowed to accept only cashless payments.
In neighboring Sweden, this is already allowed in many areas. On the doors of Swedish stores you can see a sign: "Vi hanterar ej kontanter", which translates to "We do not accept cash." Swedish politicians and the central bank would like the country to completely abandon cash by 2030.
The head of the Danish central bank, Hugo Frey Jensen, on the contrary, does not give a specific date: "We are obliged to provide the population and businesses with as much cash as needed, and we are doing that." On the other hand, he considers it important to have an efficient and reliable payment system. For a small country like Denmark, it is important to reduce costs and promote further digitalization of trade.
The owner of the hot dog kiosk in central Copenhagen is also thinking of introducing mobile phone payments. But the small cash register will probably stay there forever – as an option for tourists.