In Denmark, last year ended with a milestone: it was the first year in which there has not been a single bank robbery in the country. the Danish economy abandoned the use of cash and the influx of digital payments has made criminals in that country no longer interested in bank branches.
Since the vast majority of the population in Denmark renounces the use of banknotes, withdrawals in banks have fallen to low levels and with this the crime connected to the banking activity. In 2021, there had already been only one robbery of an institution, a figure that dropped to zero in 2022. Two decades ago, the annual number of criminal acts in banks amounted to 222.
Currently only 20 bank branches across the country handle cash. Even banks have changed their business model and have said goodbye to physical branches: of the more than 200 bank branches that existed thirty years ago, only 56 remain.
As reported by the banking association Finance Denmark, thefts from banks had started to decrease as Danes had started to use cards and smartphones more frequently to pay for their consumption. This made thieves start targeting ATMs spread across different cities across the Nordic country.
But even this type of crime has started to disappear, having peaked in 2016. However, this is not all good news: crime has migrated from face-to-face to virtual, where thieves now try to carry out frauds and scams online banking customers.
Denmark is one of four Nordic countries where cash seems on the verge of being considered an antique. Less than 5% of payments in this country are made with banknotes, which is also replicated in countries such as Switzerland, Sweden and Norway. The UK and the Netherlands are two other nations where digital payments have advanced so much in recent years that they have almost completely replaced cash.
The data contrasts sharply with what was experienced in Argentina, where over 90% of retail payments are still made with a bill of exchanges, despite the boom in virtual wallets and the government’s push to wire payments.
Source: Clarin
