The European confederation for the defence of cash — established on 9 June by the platforms of Spain, France, Sweden and Portugal — unveils its own measurement system built around three indexes: the Cash Health Index for Europe (CHIE), the Cash Acceptance Thermometer (CAT) and the Monetary Exclusion Risk Index (MERI).
The indicators draw on publicly available sources such as the ECB’s SPACE 2024 study, Eurostat and the World Bank. They will be updated quarterly and, in this first edition, cover 20 euro area countries.
Austria tops the European cash health ranking, while the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium fall into the red zone. Spain sits in the middle of the table — a position that makes it a priority country to watch.
Madrid, 20 July 2026.
A dedicated measurement system for cash in Europe
Following its formal establishment in Brussels, Denaria Europe — the European civil society confederation created by Plataforma Denaria (Spain), Droit au Cash (France), Kontantupproret (Sweden) and Denaria Portugal to defend free access to cash — is presenting its first major initiative: a proprietary set of indicators designed to measure the health of cash in Europe on a regular, rigorous and comparable basis.
Europe’s public debate on cash suffers from a chronic lack of measurement. Relevant data exist — from the European Central Bank, Eurostat and national central banks — but no single instrument brings them together, updates them regularly or communicates them in a way that is accessible to citizens, the media and policymakers. With this launch, Denaria Europe fills that gap and becomes an independent producer of data at the service of the continental debate on the future of the payments ecosystem.
Three complementary indicators
The system consists of three instruments designed to work either independently or as an integrated whole. They will be updated every quarter, initially covering 20 euro area countries and expanding to more than 25 in the second year:
- Cash Health Index for Europe (CHIE). Measures the overall vitality of cash in each country through a score from 0 to 100 that combines five dimensions: cash use at the point of sale, ATM infrastructure, transactional demand for cash, acceptance, and financial inclusion. It makes it possible to rank countries and track their progress quarter by quarter.
- Cash Acceptance Thermometer (CAT). Answers a question anyone can relate to: can I pay in cash in the shops of my country? It combines actual cash use in stores, the ease of access reported by consumers and the strength of each country’s legal framework, and is communicated through a simple three-level traffic-light system: green (acceptance guaranteed), amber (acceptance at risk) and red (active exclusion).
- Monetary Exclusion Risk Index (MERI). Rather than measuring current cash use, it gauges how vulnerable the population is to the gradual erosion of cash access infrastructure. It combines the share of people over 65, the at-risk-of-poverty rate, ATM coverage across the territory and the systemic pressure on cash in each country. Unlike the CHIE and the CAT, a high MERI score signals a high risk of exclusion.
First edition: Austria leads while northern Europe slips into the red zone
The results of the first edition (Q1 2026) paint a picture of stark contrasts across Europe. Austria has the healthiest cash ecosystem on the continent (CHIE of 88.7 out of 100), driven by Europe’s densest ATM network and high levels of cash use. It is also the only country that combines strong cash health, a green acceptance rating and a low risk of exclusion. At the opposite end, the Netherlands (27.4), Belgium (29.7) and Finland (33.1) record the lowest scores and are the only three countries in the red zone of the acceptance thermometer.
The data also reveal a politically significant paradox: the countries moving fastest towards cashless payments are precisely those where vulnerable groups face the highest risk of exclusion. Finland and the Netherlands, often held up as models of digital progress, show high risk levels on the MERI, while the Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — top the risk ranking due to the combination of poverty rates above 21% and ageing populations.
Spain occupies a strategically intermediate position: cash use remains above the euro area average (57% of point-of-sale transactions) and its ATM infrastructure is solid, but the country is rated amber on the acceptance thermometer (CAT of 66.4) and shows a high risk of exclusion (MERI of 57.3) — making it a priority country on Denaria Europe’s working agenda.
Country-by-country results
The results of the first edition of the three indicators are shown below:
Cash Health Index for Europe (CHIE)
| Rank | Country | CHIE score | I1: % of points of sale accepting cash | I2: ATMs per 100,000 inhabitants | I4: Ease of access (%) | I5: Poverty rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Austria | 88.7 | 62% | 168.6 | 89% | 14.7% |
| 2 | Slovenia | 78.4 | 64% | 79.8 | 93% | 13.0% |
| 3 | Portugal | 76.0 | 52% | 162.8 | 90% | 16.5% |
| 4 | Croatia | 70.6 | 57% | 140.9 | 91% | 19.9% |
| 5 | Slovakia | 65.1 | 57% | 63.1 | 92% | 14.2% |
| 6 | Malta | 64.5 | 67% | 44.6 | 92% | 17.1% |
| 7 | Italy | 62.9 | 61% | 88.2 | 90% | 18.9% |
| 8 | Germany | 62.1 | 57% | 77.0 | 85% | 15.5% |
| 9 | Spain | 57.3 | 57% | 96.2 | 88% | 19.7% |
| 10 | France | 54.1 | 45% | 89.3 | 88% | 15.9% |
| 11 | Luxembourg | 53.8 | 44% | 99.4 | 90% | 18.8% |
| 12 | Cyprus | 52.2 | 55% | 38.2 | 88% | 15.0% |
| 13 | Ireland | 52.2 | 46% | 44.6 | 89% | 13.1% |
| 14 | Greece | 51.8 | 54% | 63.1 | 89% | 18.1% |
| 15 | Estonia | 43.6 | 47% | 62.5 | 91% | 21.3% |
| 16 | Latvia | 40.3 | 46% | 57.0 | 90% | 21.6% |
| 17 | Lithuania | 39.2 | 45% | 42.7 | 91% | 21.5% |
| 18 | Finland | 33.1 | 27% | 36.7 | 88% | 12.8% |
| 19 | Belgium | 29.7 | 38% | 58.7 | 78% | 15.4% |
| 20 | Netherlands | 27.4 | 22% | 33.2 | 90% | 14.9% |
Cash Acceptance Thermometer (CAT)
| Rank | Country | CAT score | Signal | Legal score (0–4) | Ease of access (%) | % of points of sale accepting cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Slovenia | 91.4 | 🟢 GREEN | 3 | 93% | 64% |
| 2 | Malta | 91.1 | 🟢 GREEN | 3 | 92% | 67% |
| 3 | Austria | 85.4 | 🟢 GREEN | 3.5 | 89% | 62% |
| 4 | Italy | 81.1 | 🟢 GREEN | 3 | 90% | 61% |
| 5 | Slovakia | 77.1 | 🟢 GREEN | 2.5 | 92% | 57% |
| 6 | Croatia | 74.4 | 🟡 AMBER | 2.5 | 91% | 57% |
| 7 | Portugal | 74.1 | 🟡 AMBER | 3 | 90% | 52% |
| 8 | Germany | 70.9 | 🟡 AMBER | 3.5 | 85% | 57% |
| 9 | Greece | 66.7 | 🟡 AMBER | 2.5 | 89% | 54% |
| 10 | Spain | 66.4 | 🟡 AMBER | 2.5 | 88% | 57% |
| 11 | Cyprus | 64.8 | 🟡 AMBER | 2.5 | 88% | 55% |
| 12 | Luxembourg | 61.6 | 🟡 AMBER | 2.5 | 90% | 44% |
| 13 | Estonia | 60.4 | 🟡 AMBER | 2 | 91% | 47% |
| 14 | Lithuania | 58.8 | 🟡 AMBER | 2 | 91% | 45% |
| 15 | France | 57.1 | 🟡 AMBER | 2.5 | 88% | 45% |
| 16 | Latvia | 56.9 | 🟡 AMBER | 2 | 90% | 46% |
| 17 | Ireland | 54.3 | 🟡 AMBER | 2 | 89% | 46% |
| 18 | Netherlands | 32.0 | 🔴 RED | 1.5 | 90% | 22% |
| 19 | Finland | 30.6 | 🔴 RED | 1.5 | 88% | 27% |
| 20 | Belgium | 24.9 | 🔴 RED | 2.5 | 78% | 38% |
Monetary Exclusion Risk Index (MERI)
| Rank | Country | MERI score | Risk level | D1: % of population over 65 | D2: Poverty rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Latvia | 76.0 | Very high | 20.8% | 21.6% |
| 2 | Lithuania | 75.1 | Very high | 19.9% | 21.5% |
| 3 | Estonia | 72.1 | Very high | 20.3% | 21.3% |
| 4 | Italy | 65.0 | Very high | 23.8% | 18.9% |
| 5 | Greece | 64.4 | High | 22.3% | 18.1% |
| 6 | Finland | 63.8 | High | 22.7% | 12.8% |
| 7 | Netherlands | 62.3 | High | 19.5% | 14.9% |
| 8 | Spain | 57.3 | High | 20.4% | 19.7% |
| 9 | Croatia | 57.2 | High | 22.1% | 19.9% |
| 10 | Malta | 56.1 | High | 21.8% | 17.1% |
| 11 | France | 53.0 | High | 21.3% | 15.9% |
| 12 | Belgium | 51.9 | High | 19.4% | 15.4% |
| 13 | Germany | 50.8 | High | 22.4% | 15.5% |
| 14 | Portugal | 44.4 | Medium | 22.4% | 16.5% |
| 15 | Luxembourg | 42.5 | Medium | 15.7% | 18.8% |
| 16 | Cyprus | 38.5 | Medium | 16.9% | 15.0% |
| 17 | Slovenia | 36.0 | Medium | 21.2% | 13.0% |
| 18 | Slovakia | 31.7 | Low | 17.0% | 14.2% |
| 19 | Ireland | 29.2 | Low | 15.1% | 13.1% |
| 20 | Austria | 23.6 | Low | 19.8% | 14.7% |
A public, verifiable methodology
All three indicators are built from publicly accessible sources — the ECB’s SPACE 2024 study on consumer payment attitudes, Eurostat statistics, and financial access data from the World Bank and the IMF — normalised and aggregated using a methodology that Denaria Europe will publish in full in an open methodological note, so that the indexes can be cited and verified by academics, the media and policymakers. The CHIE, CAT and MERI are original creations, with no equivalent in the existing literature or in institutional publications.
This launch delivers on the first of the commitments Denaria Europe made at its founding: to regularly monitor cash access, acceptance and use across European countries, so that citizens have independent, rigorous information at their disposal. The confederation, chaired by Sweden’s Björn Eriksson and headquartered in Brussels, will publish future editions of the indicators every quarter, together with country rankings and trend analysis.
Denaria Europe stresses that it does not stand against digital innovation, but rather for the coexistence of all means of payment and for citizens’ right to choose how they want to pay. These new indicators were created precisely so that this right can be measured, monitored and defended with data.
Press contact
Josefina del Valle
josefina.delvalle@denaria.org