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Rabat – A recent study published by the British website Merchant Machine concluded that Morocco is leading the world’s top 20 countries reliant on cash payments in 2022, with 74% of transactions in the North African country being cash-based.
The report found that 71% of Morocco’s population do not own a bank account and only 0.2% have a credit card, “indicating that the majority of Moroccan citizens are still relying on physical cash for their transactions.”
Moroccans’ preference for cash-based payments is “likely not due to any internet issues,” since 84% of the population has access to the internet, added the report.
Egypt follows in second place after Morocco, with an unbanked population of 67% and cash-based payments making up 60% of all transactions in the country.
Kenya and Nigeria follow in third and fourth place respectively. 40% of payments in Kenya are cash-based and 44% of the population do not have a bank account, whereas only 23% of payments in Nigeria are cash-based but 61% of the population do not have bank accounts.
Read also: Moroccan Digital Transition Is Lagging, 98% of Transactions in Cash
Meanwhile, Norway tops the list of the “European countries closest to a cashless society.” The study noted that the European country has an unbanked population of 0% and only 2% of payments were made using cash.
Finland comes in second place with a 0% unbanked population and cash-based payments of only 2%. New Zealand came third with a slightly higher unbanked population of 1% but had the same percentage of cash-based payments (2%) as the top two countries.
According to Merchant Machine’s report, digital wallets, which are financial transaction applications that run on mobile devices, “are contributing to the decrease in cash-use.”
The most popular digital wallets in the world in 2022 are Alipay (1.3 billion users), WeChat Pay (900 million users), Apple Pay (507 million users) Google Pay (421 million users), and PayPal (377 million users), the study revealed.
