We are moving ever closer to a cashless society, and whilst that may be more convenient for many of us, it does reduce the chance of people donating a few coins to street performers or buying a copy of the Big Issue from a street seller.
To try and combat this issue, in Sweden homeless people selling Situation Sthlm, their version of the Big Issue, have started using smartphones and iZettle to take payments by debit or credit card.
iZettle trialled the programme with five Situation Sthlm sellers for a month, and the success of that now means that the programme is being rolled out more widely.
We’ve seen a move towards streetfood vendors using similar devices in the UK to solve the “cash problem”, but it is interesting to see them getting used for by homeless charities and people trusting the system.
Speaking on the success of teh trial, Jacob de Geer, CEO and cofounder of iZettle, said:
“Sweden is getting closer and closer to a cashless society as most people here prefer to pay by card. Cash is still important but if you don’t accept cards you will miss out. We’re very happy to make it possible for organisations like Situation Sthlm to accept cards. People are happy to trust their cards with the vendors because they trust the card system. This is a milestone for us as it’s taking our vision to democratise payments to another level.”