Young people from Generation Z pay more in cash than adults. Although young people have grown up making contactless payments with cards and phones, they make a quarter of their payments with notes and coins.
On average, the Dutch make 20.5% of their payments in cash, according to research by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB). This is even more true for teens: 25.1 percent of all payments.
Another group that pays a lot in cash is seniors of retirement age who are no longer working. They make more than 28 percent of their payments with letters and coins.
Jelmer Riegerink, an economist at DNB Bank, calls it surprising that young people use cash so often. “You might say that young people who only use their phones only pay with their phones.”
But this is not the case. Regerink thinks it makes more sense for older people. “They grew up with money and pay with it out of habit.”
According to Riegerink, the fact that young people in Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010) use cash relatively more often is due to their parents and the things they spend their money on. “Some parents give their children pocket money in cash. These young people also often live at home, so they don't have to take on as many big expenses. It's easier to pay for a can of soda in cash than to pay for the weekly groceries.”
Cash helps in preparing a budget
The groups that pay the least money are middle-income families (14 percent of their purchases) and highly educated and high-income urban residents (10 percent of their purchases).
We are choosing less and less to pay with cash at the cash register. Of the total value of cash register purchases, only 15 percent were paid in cash in 2022. This was still 57 percent in 2013.
According to Raegerink, cash has some advantages, which he sees in his research among city dwellers on a limited budget. “You can budget more easily. Someone who has a maximum of €100 to spend per week may find it useful to keep an overview this way.”
