Tuesday, March 01, 2011

The cost of cash

This morning on Radio 4 Mark Miodownik, a materials scientist, presented a programme, The Smell of Money, which was all about the cost of cash.

Two facts which caught my fancy:

  • In the UK it costs about £180 per person per year just to keep us in cash.
  • Across the EU the cost of all methods of making payment absorbs about 2.1% of GDP. The whole agricultural industry accounts for pretty much the same, so we spend as much in paying for things as we do in feeding ourselves.