ATM’s in the Netherlands cap at 50€ (so any higher denomination must be requested at the bank), due to people using contactless payments frequently there’s less incentive for cash. Even then, why did the EU decide to print 100€ or 200€ notes (forget about a 500€ note as they’ve stopped printing more since 2019 but it is still legal tender). Stores refuse to accept a 200€ note for a 150€ purchase, why do these denominations exist?
German people buying a pack of beers? Tourists love using large notes for some reason.
Rich fucks
I use 100 and 200 €/CHF notes all the time to buy weed.
Business transactions. Think of small business that deal with cash, or paying contractors, etc.
There’s many reasons larger bills still exist, even just larger cash transactions like buying a second hand car gives a reason for larger bills to continue to exist.
I only saw a €500 note once. Still remember it to this day.
Shoutout grandma, shoutout old people for still having crazy amounts of cashDue to a paperwork error and problem with VAT (long story), I ended up being owed something like €505 from a motorcycle dealership not even in the EU. They gave me a €500 and a €5 to settle everything. It was like being given a little purple gold bar. I was terrified of losing it somehow, and then just wanted to run to the bank as fast as I possibly could to get rid of it.
My brother found one on the ground when we were on holiday in Barcelona. We had a really hard time spending it. We finally made it when a grocery store clerk fetched their manager who went to their safe to split it in smaller bills.
Damn… and here I am finding €10 on the street last week and being in disbelief
Just FYI … you could have gone to prison for that.
Wow. TIL. This was many years ago, but thanks!
Crimes, banking, stuff like that.
In Denmark we phased out the DKK 1000 bill (~ €130) and it is no longer legal tender. The fact that the eurozone still has €100 and above seems crazy to me. At least in Denmark it was determined that the 1000 DKK mostly was used by gangs and for money laundering.
USA used to have $10,000 notes back in the mid 1900s that would have been mostly used for bank transfers and the like.
A lot of places keep a special marker or light to check for fakes on larger bills but they’re not unused. Was in a hardware store a couple weeks back and some older couple paid an some appliance over $1000 in all hundreds.
We were required to do our initial deposit for a bank account in Germany in cash. Not entirely sure why, but we’re immigrants and so we couldn’t easily do international transfers yet, nor did we have an in-country account to work with. Having larger denominations for a two month rent security account was very reasonable.
Do we do lots with cash? YES. We have children and they use cash to buy things. Do I use it? Yes. For everything? No. It’s about 80% digital, 20% cash. Should I use digital to buy a 1 euro pastry at a train station? No. Why pay the overhead to the bank? Don’t bother. Cash works fine. Digital works fine. Have both.
Have you heard about drugs?
While we are on the subject, who the hell uses any cash for normal transactions?
In euro countries, Germans and Balkan countries.
Outside of euro counties there are many counties where card payments are basically non existent.
Souvereign citizens
They are mostly used by money laundering and tax evasion transactions.
I exclusively use stacks of 35€ notes for those ends.
Well first of all it’s just easier storage for mid-high amounts of cash. It’ll take almost double the volume to keep the same amount in 50’s and takes twice as long to count so if someone does pay for something expensive in cash, 100’s are a lot more practical.
The other aspect I wouldn’t neglect is inflation. Today’s 50s will be 100s in a few decades so those bills will become a lot more relevant.
For me, $100 and up aren’t very useful. Some stores in Canada want to see photo ID in order to spend larger denominations.
Even if you don’t personally use them for day-to-day transactions, there is still a need for large denominations for large transactions. Appliances, cars, etc, anything you might be buying private party from Facebook marketplace/for sale ads that will cost a lot and carrying a high quantity of lower denominations would be impractical.
