THEItaly is a country very fond of cash. And if it is true that citizens who use electronic payment systems are increasing, our country remains at the bottom of the European ranking for the number of cashless transactions per capita, recording a trend opposite to the European average. The Pnrr, however, could reverse the trend by generating almost 800 million more electronic payments for a value of more than 27 billion euros. This was revealed by the seventh report of the Community Cashless Society 2022, presented by The European House – Ambrosetti which, by processing the data from the ECB, returns a picture of the (contrasting) trend of digital payments in Italy.
"Also this year, Italy confirms itself as a strongly cash-based country and we rank among the 30 worst economies in the world for cash intensity with a value of cash in circulation on GDP equal to 15,4%", he stated Valerio DeMolli, Managing Partner & CEO, The European House – Ambrosetti.
But there is also good news. From the survey conducted by interviewing citizens, it emerges that over 7 out of 10 Italians would like to use cashless more (up by 13,1% compared to the 2020 survey) and 6 out of 10 Italians declare that they want to reduce the use of cash in the future. However, it is necessary to accelerate the transition towards the #CashlessRevolution and to this end, Ambrosetti has identified 9 policy proposals, which aim to promote digital payments and at the same time to "get used" to the use of cashless in everyday life especially in the mobility and tourism sectors.
Digital payments: Italy is in 25th place in Europe and 29th in the world
Despite the increased propensity of Italians to use alternative payment systems to cash, also in 2020 Italy remains third last in Europe for the number of transactions per capita. The datum stops at 61,5, even down on the previous year's datum (61,7). Alone Romania (53) and Bulgaria (31) do worse than us, with a European average standing at 142 and the best performing country, the Denmark, which reaches 379 transactions per capita in 2020. The total value transacted with payment and prepaid cards decreased by 1,4%, equal to 253 billion euros.
The picture drawn by the report returns a country still heavily dependent on cash. Italy is 29th in the world for the incidence of cash on the economy and ranks 24th out of 27 EU countries in the Cashless Society Index, worsening by two positions which become six if we take into consideration the last 12 years.
Italians want to use digital payments more but fear fraud
The Report records the consolidation of the propensity to use digital payment methods by Italians. In 2021, over 7 out of 10 Italians indicate their willingness to use more cashless payment instruments and 57% have actually increased their use. The main obstacles to the diffusion of cashless remain i fears about fraud – even if digital transactions are considered safer than cash – and acceptance problems encountered last year by at least one in four Italians.
For the first time, the 2022 edition of the report presents data from the survey administered to around 400 Italian companies. The perception of high digital maturity is widespread, but the use ofE-commerce stays behind. Just over 1 out of 2 companies (56,3%) has activated digital channels to manage orders and transactions with other companies (B2B e-commerce) and 1 out of 4 (24,9%) has not activated any channels and is not currently evaluating this option, while the remaining 18,8%, although they have not yet activated any B2B e-commerce channel, are thinking of activating it.
What can the Pnrr do?
Finally, there is a profound analysis of the opportunities connected to the National Resilience and Restart Plan. The European House – Ambrosetti has identified 4 areas of intervention of the Pnrr that could have cascading effects on electronic payments, highlighting for each of them the number of cashless transactions and the cashless transaction value that can be generated from the planned investment: the digitization of the public administration; digitization of tourism; the renewal of local public transport fleets; the digitization of healthcare.
