The social cost of digital payments in Swedish kronor is lower than for cash (see the Payments Report 2020 for an explanation of why). From an efficiency point of view, it is therefore positive that more and more people are choosing to pay digitally, as this lowers the overall cost of payments to society.

But there are also downsides to an increasingly digital payments market. As more and more people pay digitally, cash and other manual payment methods become marginalised. For people who cannot use cards or digital payment services, this becomes problematic as it makes it difficult to pay bills and make purchases (see Difficult for many to pay digitally).