Old Habits Die Hard

Spaniards who don’t like using cash and credit cards are sitting on around 341 million euros in foreign currency in their homes, according to a survey by Visa Europe. The average Spanish person who goes on holiday to a country that does not use the euro has around 71 euros in currency left over and does not bother to exchange it. In some cases, this is deliberate – foreign money is kept as a souvenir – but in others, it is not a conscious decision.

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Although credit and debit cards are tending to be accepted more and more these days around the world and travellers’ cheques are becoming a thing of the past, very few Spaniards use their cards abroad. Only 31 percent of Spaniards prefer to pay by card when they are at home, and this reduces even further – to 18% – when they are abroad. A total of 32% of people in Spain say they use cash all the time at home and do not like using cards, but 44% of them only want to use cash when outside the country.