##dotal or survey - based evidence tells that iceland is the most cashless society measured based on purchase value in shops. only about 9 % of the turnover is paid by cash. in iceland debit and credit cards are the main payment instruments at points of sale. a colder climate seems to promote the use of cards and other cashless instruments, as internationally low cash usage are found in nordic countries ranging from about 28 % in norway, 32 % in finland to about 37 % in sweden. surveys in belgium and holland report cash purchases ranging between 40 - 50 % of value, while southern countries show levels between 60 - 80 % or even higher. austria and germany are also traditionally cash - based countries. also the level of electronification in payments varies a lot among the eu15. most of the cashless account payments have paper - based and electronic versions. the electronification level is a measure of to what extent paper - based credit transfers and direct debits are replaced by electronic file transfers or internet e - banking initiation. it also captures to what extent slip - based card payments are modernised to eftpos - based, ( that's electronic funds transfers at point - of - sale - based ) electronic card payments. although all countries show increasing numbers of e - payments per inhabitant for the years 2002 - 2006 and most countries show an increasing level of automation, the actual variations between countries are very large. holland and finland seem to be the leading countries, only 3 - 4 % of transactions are initiated by paper formats. from the statistical data, we can conclude that there is a clear trend towards a cashless and e - payment based society among all eu15 countries. however, progress is quite slow and the use of cash currently seems to be decreasing at only 2 - 3 % a year. if this trend does not accelerate, the use of cash will remain dominant for many years, especially in the central and southern parts of europe. technology developments still, it would appear that we are approaching a turning point in payment practices. mobile terminals, mobile phones are fast becoming everybody's personal electronic device, and can perform an increasing range of services. in fact modern smart phones are small pcs with a wide set of input, output and communication features. these even surpass standard pcs in communication capabilities. true, they have somewhat lower processing capacity than standard pcs, due to the need to save on battery power. but this is not a barrier for payment processing as the capacity need there is

pentti hakkarainen : economic outlook – still uncharted waters ahead speech by mr pentti hakkarainen, deputy governor of the bank of finland, at the norwayfinland trade association, helsinki, 11 april 2011. * * * the world economy has been recovering from the deep financial and economic crisis. recently the rapid increase in energy prices, the natural disaster in japan, and the once again heightened sovereign debt crisis have all casted a shadow over the global economic prospects. should we be optimistic or pessimistic on the current outlook? as winston churchill has stated, “ a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity ; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. ” today, i ’ ve chosen to be on the positive side, trying to be still a realist. i ’ d like to briefly discuss the trends in the world economic outlook and the current situation in europe. there are quite a number of positive signs. thereafter i ’ d like to say a few words on the long - term fiscal policy challenges that the recent crisis has posed to most advanced countries. finally, i ’ ll present the bank of finland ’ s forecast of the finnish economy. the global outlook the world economy has been recovering from the economic crisis during the latter part of 2010 and early months of 2011. according to the bank of finland ’ s march 2011 forecast, the world economy and world trade will continue to grow at a brisk pace. however, growth has remained highly divergent in different regions, with the emerging economies under china ’ s lead still firmly at the forefront. [ slide 2 ] advanced economies, in turn, have witnessed continued slow recovery by historical standards, and unemployment has remained high. recently, differences in growth have also started to appear across the advanced economies. while the economic outlook for the united states and partly for europe has improved, prospects have remained very weak for some european countries. the forecast was finalised before the latest increase of uncertainty : the rapid rise of oil price, the tsunami and the nuclear disaster in japan, and the recent heightening of the sovereign debt crisis. it is still too early to say the full impact of these but the sign is clear : it is negative. markets are relatively optimistic : stock indices outside japan have rebounded [ slide 3 ]. on the other hand, the march pmi ( survey ) indices show some signs of taming. on balance, it currently looks that these shocks are not enough to derail the recovery