Few people bother to pickup loose change anymore.
What's the long-term plan here? Perhaps it's to add maximum physical friction to moving larger amounts of fiat than you can spend in a single visit to Costco on a food run for your family of of 4.
:)
Apparently 25% of them were in circulation in Spain, despite the Spanish economy being only a fraction of the eurozone.
Most shops won't take them and cash machines don't give them out.
Which is pretty odd now given how high inflation got here for the last few years.
Here's an article from 5 years ago saying that £50 notes were widely regarded as just used by criminals.
I live in the Netherlands and you can really live 100% cash-free here. A lot of places are card-only, even.
New York and some other cities actually made it illegal, as it's discriminatory.
Refusing to take part in the banking system is not worth penalizing businesses for. Let the free market work.
The problem you cite is not solved by requiring businesses to accept cash—it is solved by removing the homeless schizophrenic from the depravity of the street.
1- you are on the secret unaccountable banking blacklist
2- you lack proper identity documentation
3- you are a fugitive from justice
Without a bank account, you can't get a payment card, and, in a cashless world, you can't buy food.
You don’t want those people to not be able to buy food, or the next time you go and buy vegetables or fruits or chicken breast with your own shiny metal bank card, you might find yourself paying 5x the cost.
There is a secret blacklist shared among the banks that cause them to deny or automatically close accounts held by certain people. They are not required to service anyone.
Do you not see the dangerous failure modes of allowing private companies to point and click cause someone to become persona non grata without due process? They also happily do so at the request of the state, again with no requirement of criminal wrongdoing or burden of proof, and no due process.
The Visa/Mastercard cartel has too much power.
And of course cashless makes it hell on those without bank accounts, like the homeless and immigrants, those who rely on informal employment, and the general outskirts of society. There are prepaid cards, but they require ID checks and often fees which they can hardly afford. That will make many rely on informal banking from loan-shark types.
And last, the banks see everything. I worked for a bank. I definitely don't want those people to have all the data that matters on everyone.
My favorite head scratcher is the US penny. It would be so much easier on all involved if we rounded so everything was MOD5 friendly, and just eliminated the penny.
What is wrong with us?
CHF 1000 is worth less than it ever was so the whole claim about it being used for crime is bullshit. People keep cash at home and safety deposit boxes. When we had negative interest rates it made sense to keep some money in cash.
A bigger debate that is coming is the elimination of the 5 rappen coin. The 1 rappen coin was killed a long time ago and the golden colored 5 may soon also go.
€1.2million in a briefcase? No problem. 3kg of beef? Serious business.
CHF1000 notes would obviously be very convenient for moving large amounts of cash. If you are the sort of person trying to avoid the tax man's 20-40% taxation or the police's 100% taxation, why care about the CHF exchange rate?