More and more supermarket customers are also withdrawing their cash there. A new study suggests this could put pressure on affected retailers.
Frankfurt – Germans love their cash. But despite everything, cashless payments with Girocard are becoming increasingly popular. According to a new study, if shopping in supermarkets is increasingly paid for with a card, this could lead to problems for retailers - especially if money can also be withdrawn at the checkout there.
“More and more people want to withdraw money, but fewer and fewer people want to pay with cash. If the cash quota continues to decline, it will in some cases be difficult for retailers to fully maintain this service and meet demand. Then cash would have to be bought from suppliers,” says EHI study author Horst Rüter.
Withdraw cash and pay with card at the supermarket
Last year, consumers in Germany used the Girocard more often than ever to make cashless payments. The Frankfurt institution Euro Kartensysteme counted 7.48 billion payment transactions with plastic cards. That was 11.5 percent more than in the previous record year of 2022, as shown in the figures published on Tuesday.
At the same time, the use of cash withdrawals from retailers has risen sharply. According to a current study, retailers paid out 2.23 billion euros to customers in 2019, and in 2023 it was already more than 12.3 billion. The offer can be used at Rewe, Edeka, dm and Rossmann, among others.
This development is understandable: in the supermarket it is also easier to pay quickly with a card than to dig out the appropriate cash. And if you still need some banknotes, you can also withdraw some money at the checkout. But all of this could put retailers under pressure, suggests a current study by the Cologne retail research institute EHI.
New study: Cash withdrawals could put retailers under pressure
According to EHI, retailers have to pay between 0.1 and 0.2 percent of the amount paid out to use the service. According to this, the banks received fees of 17.23 million euros from dealers last year. EHI payment expert Rüter assumes that this amount will continue to rise due to high demand. “This could mean that stores are not always able to pay out cash to customers, especially in the mornings when checkouts are even empty. Retailers would then have to stock up on additional money,” he explains.
The affected dealers themselves appear relaxed. “We cannot see the predicted problems and bottlenecks for our group,” says a Rewe spokesman. Rossmann also sees “no restrictions on the offer”. However, Dm stated that it was “monitoring” the developments. It would be welcomed “if the banks would waive charging fees on the payout amount,” said a spokeswoman for the company.
“Demand is also increasing due to the declining number of ATMs”
Study author Rüter does not believe that retailers will stop offering them. However, a restriction is conceivable, for example in the form of a lower upper limit for the sums paid out. According to EHI, retailers are currently paying out 13.3 percent of the cash they collect back to customers. The share of cash in total sales fell by two percentage points to 35.5 percent in 2023 - and the trend is continuing to fall. Rüter expects it to be only 25 percent by 2025.
Why are people withdrawing more and more cash even though they pay with it less often? This is also contradictory from Rüter's point of view, but he still has an explanation. “Demand is also increasing due to the declining number of ATMs.” In addition, there are still many cash lovers in Germany who resist paying by card.
With material from dpa