More than half a billion Chinese will decide this year to pay with their phones in shops, bars and restaurants. This is what China Daily revealed today. According to the newspaper, this figure corresponds to an electronic payment rate of over 35%, the highest in the world. The data was provided by Statista, a German online statistics portal.

In Europe, the Nordic countries have shown the greatest propensity to use digital payments. Sweden, for example, has been baptized as the "world capital of fight against cash": cash transitions represent only 2% of the Scandinavian country's total, a percentage that according to forecasts will fall below half a percentage point by 2020.

In Germany, in 2018, digital card-based payments exceeded cash payments for the first time. Last year, transactions with payment cards amounted to € 209 billion. So, basically, one billion more than the payments made with banknotes.

Although Italy is still considered by many to be an anchored in cash nation, card payments have reached 240 billion euros (+ 9% per annum), that is the 37% of the total number of Italian household transactions - the innovative payments record the highest growth: + 55% to 79 billion, according to the figures that the Mobile Payment & Commerce Observatory of the Polytechnic of Milan.