The encouragement of governments to turn its systems toward cashless societies will likely lead to an emergence of new touristic experiences. The impacts of cashlessness will affect the creation of the purchasing experience in the tourist mind. Sweden is one of the fastest growing economies toward a cashless society, hence, this study will explore the tourist experience in a cashless society and its impacts on the tourist experience by applying hypothesis basing on rational choice theory. The study is based on a survey of data collected via on-site sampling during the Swedish Skiing games: Cross Country World Cup, that is held in Falun, Sweden between 15th-18th of March in 2018.

Purpose – The purpose is to develop a greater understanding of what is requested by customers with regards to e-commerce and mobile payments and how managers attitude can affect the technological adaption process. Furthermore, a suggested framework will be presented on how SMEs can adapt to these changes. Problem – The move towards the cashless society has changed the business environment and increased the demand for mobile payments and e-commerce. The transition to implement new technologies requires resources in terms of time, money and knowledge. Therefore, this process can be challenging for SMEs. Design-Methodology-Approach – Primary data is collected through case studies and secondary data from previous research conducted. Two SMEs within the retail business in Jönköping is investigated using semi-structured interviews. The combined data is analyzed together with previous literature within the field. Findings – The findings show that customers’ demand of e-commerce and mobile payments has increased. A positive correlation between managers’ attitude towards new technology and the implementation process is found. To adapt to these technological changes, it is important for SME managers to invest equally in knowledge and technology.

This thesis aims to answer the question how our relation to money will look like in a potential cashless society.  In a world where all cash has disappeared and the only existing way of paying is digital, what will the notion of money be? How are we interacting with it? How is it affecting our way of spending and saving? With the digitalization of money comes a lot of potential problems that may not be as clear in the beginning, and are being over shadowed by the much clearer and easier to grasp benefits. People tend to spend much more when using a card instead of paying with cash. Overspending a budget is easy when borrowing money through services such as “Buy now, Pay later” - payments. There is no difference between paying 50 units and 5000 units when doing it through the internet.  What will this do to us in a future society? By using Sweden as a context, this thesis is exploring how the transition to a cashless society will look like and the consequences it may have. Initially having a user centered-focus, trying to solve problem, the project takes a turn and switches to a more speculative point of view, exploring different possibilities of how we can connect and interact with money. The final proposal includes three probes acting as conversation pieces, enabling a discussion regarding the removing of cash.

The title of this essay is "What are the effects of a cashless society on VAT evasion –A study on Denmark, Finland & Sweden". Due to an increasingly digitalized world there will be different effects on the economy. We are getting closer to a cashless society every day, but we do not know the consequences that this will have. VAT evasion has long been a problem and has been easy to go through with, due to all the payments made with cash. It would be interesting to see if there is going to be a change in VAT evasion now as we go towards a cashless society. The aim of the study was therefore to answer the question: what are the effects of a cashless society on VAT evasion. To answer this question we focused on collecting data from three Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Many articles were read on the subject before interesting data was collected to be analyzed. The data, mostly gathered from the European Central Bank, included the VATgap, number of payment terminals, number of ATMs, percentage of total payments made with cards, GDP and the Consumer Price Index for each of the three chosen countries. In the theoretical framework the theory around VAT is presented as well as a short discussion about the underlying factors on VAT evasion. There is also a section on how we have chosen to represent the cashless society and how this will be measured in the paper. In order with previous research the hypothesis of the study was formed to be that the VAT gap will decrease as we gotowards a cashless society. Multiple regressions were made on the data collected and the result analyzed. There was no significant relationship found between the VAT gap and any of the three explanatory variables. Instead the VAT gap seemed to be connected to what country that was studied. The coefficients of the variables seemed to indicate that there might be a positive relationship between the VAT gap divided by GDP and the number of payment terminals. The reason for this relationship was discussed to possibly be blamed on the fact that card usage increases the total transactions due to the speed and simplicity of card payments. In order to make the results more reliable it was suggested that the study would be enlarged to include more countries and specifically countries that are less digitalized and perceived to be more corrupt.

The present study aims to deliberate over a wider perspective on the topic of physical currency, assuming the global conversion to digital payment instruments affecting stakeholders at different scales alters number of aspects. The theoretical section discusses the process of transition to cashless society by identifying transformation stages and the barriers faced to undertake the shift. Subsequently, the links between factors as business environment, globalization, and shadow economy in relation to physical currency in circulation are examined by static and dynamic panel data analyses applying annual panel data for 70 countries for the period from 2013 to 2017. The conclusive inference is formulated based on outputs from the Blundell-Bond (1998) system GMM estimator. The empirical results provide significant evidence on negative relationship between business environment and physical currency in circulation and contrary positive link for shadow economy. Further, the greater impact of business environment on physical money among variables included, implies the promotion of electronic money solutions solely to be not sufficient to transit to cashless economy. We also construct transformation score ranking for the last five years to snap the transit stage among countries included in the study with...

Around the globe, countries move away from banknotes and coins in the favor of digitized payments. A number of findings from academic research conclude various benefits associated with decreased cash usage, such as enhanced economic development, less costs for governments and banks, financial transparency as well as lower economic-related crime rates. In a light of various benefits moving towards cashless payments, it is hypothesized that there also could be a relationship between how innovative a country is and how much cash circulates in economy. The relationship could be both-sided like less cash circulation can trigger innovation and, at the same time, adoption of cashless payments could be driven by how innovative a country is. To be able to investigate a potential correlation, a correlation analysis is conducted between the two variables: an innovation level of a country and cash circulation in econom. The Global Innovation Index score will be used to summarize various factors that provide an overview of national innovation performance, and percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be used for currency in circulation. According to the findings, the hypothesis that there is a correlation between cash circulation and innovation performance in a country could not be rejected with a 5% significance level. / Runt om i världen öppnar länder upp för att gå från kontanta betalningsmedel mot digitala betallösningar. Enligt tidigare forskning, leder minskad kontanthantering till flertalet fördelar såsom kraftigare ekonomisk tillväxt, ökad transparens, minskade kostnader samt minskad ekonomiskt brottslighet. De fördelar som kontantlösa betalningar skapar kan vara kopplade till hur innovativt ett land är och hur mycket kontanta medel som cirkulerar i ett lands ekonomi. Ett potentiellt samband mellan mängd kontanter som cirkulerar i ett samhälle och innovation i ett land kan vara tvåsidigt, till exempel att minskade mängder kontanter i ekonomin kan skapa innovation eller så kan kontantlösa betalningar skapas av hög innovationsnivån i ett land. För att kunna undersöka ett potentiellt samband, utförs en korrelationsanalys mellan de två variablerna: nationell innovationsnivå och mängd kontanter i cirkulation i ekonomin. Global Innovation Index används för att sammanfatta olika faktorer som ger en översikt över den nationella innovationsnivå per land och en procentandel av bruttonationalprodukten (BNP) kommer att användas för mängd valuta i omlopp. Enligt framkomna resultat från korrelationsanalysen kunde hypotesen om att det finns ett samband mellan kassaflöde och innovationsnivå i ett land inte förkastas.

Titel: Hur påverkar kontantlösa banker relationen till kunderna? Nivå: C-uppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Sofia Ågren och Nanette Brorén Handledare: Per-Arne Wikström Datum: Juni 2013   Syfte: Syftet är att belysa hur förändringen med bankernas kontanthantering i Sverige påverkar relationen med deras kunder med anseende på kundernas syn till de nya bankkanalerna.   Metod: Denna uppsats har genomförts med en kvalitativ metodansats, detta på grund av att vi ville få en djupare förklaring och förståelse till det fenomen som vi studerade. Vi valde att utföra sju intervjuer med personer på sju olika bankkontor. För att samla information till empirin använde vi oss i denna studie av semi-strukturerade intervjuer, där frågorna som vi ställde till respondenterna var ganska öppna. Detta valde vi eftersom att vi ville att respondenterna skulle få mer rum för att fritt kunna framföra det som de ville ha sagt, att vi då inte skulle styra dem särskilt mycket i deras svar. Men samtidigt ville vi ha stöd och hjälp av riktlinjerna i en intervjuguide, detta för att vara säkra på att få med det som vi ville ta upp i denna studie.   Resultat & slutsats: Bankkontoren som vi besökte har undersökt vad kunderna vill ha genom olika kundundersökningar. Via dessa undersökningar har de sedan kunnat se ett mönster från kunderna, bland annat att efterfrågan på kontanter minskar och efterfrågan på personlig rådgivning ökar. Vilket gör att bankerna har anpassat sig efter kundernas behov genom att ta bort kontanthanteringen över disk och frigjort tid till de privata rådgivningarna. Relationsmarknadsföringen är viktigt för att kunna bygga en långsiktig relation mellan kunden och banken, kärnan inom relationsmarknadsföringen är själva relationen. För att bevara och skapa förtroendet hos kunder är det viktigt att medarbetarna på bankkontoren lyssnar på sina kunder. Detta för att de sedan på ett bra sätt ska kunna hitta den bästa lösningen för var och en av kunderna utifrån deras behov. Bankerna som vi besökte hade tagit bort kontanthanteringen över disk och ingen av dessa banker har tappat många kunder på grund av det. Att det har gått så pass bra kan bero på att bankerna i ett tidigt stadium berättade för sina kunder att förändringen skulle ske och gav kunderna andra lösningar än kontanter.   Förslag till fortsatt forskning: I den fortsatta forskningen skulle det kunna göras en liknande studie som denna, men att den utgår från kundernas perspektiv istället. En annan intressant fortsatt forskning skulle vara att det inte bara studerade från kundernas perspektiv, utan från både kund- och bankperspektiv. Att dessa sedan kan jämföras för att undersöka om de anser att detta har påverkat relationen på olika sätt. Uppsatsens bidrag: Det bidrag som vi vill ge med denna studie är att ge en förklaring till hur en förändring i en verksamhet kan påverka dess relation med kunderna. Denna studie kan vara till nytta för olika bankkontor, där de då kan se hur andra har jobbat vid en sådan förändring och hur kunderna har reagerat.   Nyckelord: Kontantlöst samhälle, förtroende hos bank, bankernas relation till kunderna, kontanthantering, kontantlösa banker i Sverige, kundernas förtroende, förväntan, relationsmarknadsföring och kundrelationer. / Title: ”How does cashless banks affect the relationship with the customers?” Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Author: Sofia Ågren and Nanette Brorén Supervisor: Per-Arne Wikström Date: June 2013   Aim: The purpose is to illustrate how the change in banks' cash management in Sweden affects the relationship with their customers with respect to customers’ views of the new banking channels.   Method: This paper has been carried out with a qualitative method, this because we wanted to get a deeper explanation and understanding of the phenomenon that we decides to study. We chose to perform seven interviews with persons in seven different bank offices. To collect the empirical data we used semi-structured interviews. We chose to use that kind of interview because we wanted the respondents to have more room to freely express what they wanted to say, that we would not control them as much in their response. But at the same time we wanted to have the support and help of the guidelines in an interview guide, this to be sure to get what we wanted to address in our study.   Result and Conclusions: The bank offices that we visited have checked what customers want through surveys. By these they have seen a pattern from the customers, the demand for cash has decreased and the demand for personal financial advice has increased. This means that the banks have adapted to customer needs by removing manual cash handling and freed up time to private consulting. Relationship marketing is important for building a long term relationship between the customer and the bank, the core of relationship marketing is the actual relationship. It is important that the employees at the bank offices are listening to their customers in order to maintain and create trust among them. This in order to be able to find the best solution for each customer based on their needs. The banks that we visited have removed the manual cash management and none of these banks have lost many customers. This could be due to that the banks in an early stage told their customers that the change would occur and that they gave the customers different solutions to cash. The banks made sure that the customers were informed well in advance before the change took place.   Suggestions for future research: A future research would be to undertake a similar study like this, but looking from the customer's perspective instead. Another interesting future research would be to not only study it from the customer's perspective, but from both the customers and banks perspective. This could be interesting because you then can compare these two groups to see if they feel that the change in cash handling has affected customers in different ways.   Contribution of the thesis: The paper contributes to provide an explanation of how a change in a business may affect its relationship with the customers. This study may be useful for different banks, where they then can see how others have worked with such a change and how customers have reacted.   Key words: Cashless society, confidence in the banking, banking relationship with customers, cash management, cashless bank in Sweden, customer confidence, expectation, relationship marketing and customer relationship.

Rapid digitalisation development has been stampeding widely across today’s societies, and not least in the payment industry. Though, the digitalisation in the payment industry has been very deviating, even between similar well-developed countries, and while there are positive and negative effects with both digital- and physical payment means, there is little knowledge that highlights the influencing factors and accompanied problems. This study therefore explore swhich, and how, different factors influence a country’s degree of digital payments, and creates further understanding of where the payment markets are heading in the future. It is done through a case study of four different industrialised countries, Sweden, Italy, Canada, and Switzerland which involves mapping the countries’ payment markets, as well as potential factors influencing a population’s payment habits, through a perspective of innovation theory in terms of dominant designs and technological discontinuities. Theory of network externalities and two-sided platforms are further used to explain and discuss how a two-sided market, likethe payment market, is affected by changes and other circumstances in different ways.Conclusions are then drawn from the used theories together with a comparison of the findings,and identifies certain influencers to a country’s distribution of payments, as well as provides indications of where the different payments markets are heading in the future. Data is mainly gathered through written material and credible databases, but also from semi-structured interviews. / Den snabba digitaliseringen har slagit sig fram i dagens samhällen, och inte minst i betalningsindustrin. Dock har digitaliseringen i betalningsindustrin varit mycket avvikande mellan liknande välutvecklade länder, och medan det finns positiva och negativa effekter med både digitala och fysiska betalningsmedel, finns det inte mycket kunskap om påverkandefaktorer och medföljande problem. Denna studie undersöker därför vilka, och hur, olika faktorer påverkar ett lands grad av digitala betalningar, och vidare skapar ytterligare förståelse för var betalningsmarknaderna är på väg framöver. Detta görs genom en fallstudie av fyra olika industrialiserade länder, Sverige, Italien, Kanada och Schweiz, som innebär en kartläggning av ländernas betalningsmarknader, och av potentiella faktorer som påverkar befolkningens betalningsvanor, genom ett perspektiv från innovationsteori i form av dominerande design och tekniska diskontinuiteter. Teori om nätverksexternaliteter och tvåsidiga plattformar används vidare för att förklara och diskutera hur en tvåsidig marknad som betalningsmarknadenpåverkas av förändringar och andra omständigheter. Slutsatser dras sedan från de användateorierna tillsammans med en jämförelse av resultaten och identifierar påverkande faktorer tillett lands betalningsdistribution, samt ger indikationer på var de olika betalningsmarknaderna är på väg framöver. Data samlades huvudsakligen in genom skriftligt material och från tillförlitliga databaser, men även från semistrukturerade intervjuer.

The digital payment industry has become one of the fastest evolving markets in the world, but in the wake of its rapid advancement, an ever increasing gap between academic theory and the actual reality of this market widens - and especially so when it comes to entry theory. It is widely acknowledged that the world is moving towards an ever more homogeneous economy, but despite the fact that payment preferences differ greatly from country to country - research on this subject continues to revolve mainly around localized efforts. But as historical inequalities between poor and rich societies continue to dissipate - learning from nations at the forefront of technological advancement increases the likelihood that the developed strategy becomes applicable to an increased number of countries. By selecting a nation most conducive to technological growth, the purpose of this report is to map the present dynamics in its digital payment industry using both recent and traditional market entry theory. However, studies geared towards globalized strategy formulation cannot be assumed as having guaranteed access to internal company-data at all times. So in order to facilitate such studies, the level of dependency on primary data required for conducting such research needs to be understood first, which is why the work in this report is constrained strictly to data of secondary nature. This, not only to further map the characteristics of this market, but also to see how open the market is to public inspection. Ultimately, the academic contribution becomes that of providing a road-map towards adapting currently available market entry theory to suit the rapidly evolving conditions of the digital payment industry from a global perspective and, when failing to do so, the aim is to also explore avenues for further research towards this end goal.