The cashless economy: Sweden's switch to digital tells a cautionary tale

Sweden's an extreme case: It's a small, tech-savvy economy. But the direction of travel is the same everywhere, accelerated by a pandemic that saw QR codes replace restaurant menus

Bjorn Ulvaeus, one-quarter of Swedish pop group ABBA, became a standard-bearer for a world without cash after his son got burgled. Ditching coins and banknotes would hurt criminals and tax-dodgers while helping businesses and government budgets, he reckoned. “Sweden would be the ideal country to make cashless,” he told Bloomberg in 2014. “I think that should be the future.”
 

Nearly a decade later, he’s almost got his wish. A minority of Swedes said in a survey they’d used cash in the previous 30 days, while a whopping 95% of 15- to 65-year-olds has downloaded mobile payment app Swish, owned by