Long a country where cash is king, Italy has been prodded towards electronic payments in 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic, while the government is adding further incentives to pay by card.
A new cashback initiative launched this week offers an automatic refund from the state to citizens making in-store purchases with a bank card orsmartphone app, as long as they first register their payment methods on the government’s own IO app.
Under “Christmas Cashback”, users will get back 10 percent of each purchase up to a maximum of 150 euros before the end of the year, as long as they makeat least ten digital transactions. Read more…..
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Is cash still king? The coronavirus pandemic may cause a drastic decline in cash usage due to the risk of contamination. The unprecedented surge in the demand for contactless payment has also shown outstanding performances for major companies offering cashless payment methods, like Apple, Square and Paypal. Could covid-19 signal the end of cash in the United States and can the U.S. really function without physical currency?
