The Figures speak for themselves: Since the beginning of the Corona-crisis figures, according to a recent survey, 26 percent of Germans more with the card than before. 54 percent want to use the Online Banking more. The tendency seems obvious: Some banks have no branches and no ATMs, and more. But what are the risks of the new Trend carries with it? And there is already plenty of opportunities for contactless payment? In the report "ZDFzoom: card or Cash from Creates Corona the cash?" would like to Kersten Schüßler go of these issues. The ZDF shows the Film today, Wednesday, 5. August, at 22: 45.

ZDF / Ulf Behrens tele show

The journey begins in Sweden. Here cash is already a rarity. Whether at a Kiosk, at the bakery or in the market: Everywhere cards are accepted, or alternatively, the mobile payment service "Swish". This, the report, transfer the sum to the input of a number or Scan a QR explains the Codes automatically to the dealer. Sounds practical, but is also treacherous, because the Swedish payment processor with to get almost everything from the money transport. The advantage in turn: parents can control their children's spending on digital and control.

ZDF / Ulf Behrens tele show The risk of infection via cash is low

In other countries, it is even more drastic: "South Korea and China have enacted a quarantine for Bank notes, and even Bank notes destroyed," says the Harvard Professor Marion Labouré in the Film. On behalf of the German Bank, it has created a study on cash use in Germany. The result: even Though more and more people pay with card, also increases the amount of circulating notes and coins. Because this is seen as a safe storage.

The risk of a possible Corona infection via cash is low. It was one of the Bills the special coating of the Five - and Ten-Euro, as Johannes Beermann, member of the management Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, explains. That the abolition of cash was the decisive blow against the shadow economy and corruption, doubts it. The Professor for business Informatics and society at the University of Economics in Vienna, Sarah Spiekermann, provides for cashless payment, for other reasons, critical: It is generally known that credit card companies give data to third parties. In the normal case, we speak here of 30,000 to 40,000 data per Person.

The dangers of privacy

Even more problematic systems, such as the Chinese "Smile-to-pay" ("Smile to pay are"): Via face scanning customers get this access to shops. An additional might determine Artificial intelligence but also the emotional state or the social involvement of the customer. And yet, Spiekermann would like to keep the cash, not only for privacy reasons. Rather, she sees a "absolute security risk," if the power or IT fails.

And yet, cashless payment is still in this country on the rise. The success of digital-only banks, such as "N26", specializing in accounts management via a Smartphone or concepts such as "Barzahlen.de" where one offers a mixed form. shows Sebastian Seifert, co-founder of "Barzahlen.de": "When I think about a world in which there is no cash, am I, as Europe, as Germany is dependent on two major American credit card companies, which control our entire payment. I would like to?" His customers would instead, for each transaction, a unique Barcode on the phone that is scanned at the checkout. A data acquisition or transmission, there is not.

Looks like the future of the number of traffic? Or we stay at the end but good old cash? The Swedish Initiative "Kontantupprorer" (cash-insurgency) is exactly that. With success: as of 2021 Sweden banks wool commit more cash to provide it at the end.

*The post "TV documentary asks: How dangerous is a future without cash?" is published by the tele look. Contact with the executives here.

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Date Of Update: 05 August 2020, 16:27