GENEVA, June 3 (Xinhua) -- In an age when plastic payments with credit or debit cards abound in many countries "cash is king" still in Switzerland where it is used for seventy percent of payments, a latest Swiss central bank survey has said.
Respondents to the Swiss National Bank (SNB) payments survey believe cash is more widely accepted, user-friendly, speedier and more cost efficient than any other payment method.
"Cash is the most common method of payment for households in Switzerland. Of the payments recorded, 70 percent were processed with cash," said the SNB.
Measured in value terms, cash, however, accounted for just 45 percent of the recorded expenditure.
"This difference is attributable to the fact that cash is a particularly popular payment method for small amounts," said the central bank.
Yet, cash is also often used when larger sums are involved with the SNB finding that 35 percent of non-recurring payments that involve amounts of more than 1,000 Swiss francs (1,016 U.S. dollars) are settled with cash.
Nine out of 10 respondents think Swiss banknotes are forgery-proof.
About 55 percent of the payment value is eaten up by debit and credit cards, and to a lesser extent e-banking, post office, internet payment, and app transactions said the SNB.
When executing payments, households use both small and large denomination banknotes.
The 10-franc note and the 20-franc note are used very frequently in payments, but the two largest denominations are also widespread in Switzerland.
Some 40 percent of respondents indicated that they had at least one 1,000-franc (1,016 U.S. dollars) note in their possession within the last two years, a figure that rises to 66 percent with respect to the 200-franc note.
At the end of 2017, there were in circulation 50 million 1,000 Swiss franc notes, the world's highest denomination.
The European Central Bank has stopped producing 500-euro notes for fear that they were used for criminal purposes, Swissinfo the website of the national broadcaster reported.
