The European Central Bank says the total stock of banknotes in the EU keeps rising, even as contactless payments dominate daily transactions in many cities and households are told to keep cash ready for war, wildfires and cyber-attacks. Philip Lane, the ECB’s chief economist, said at the MacGill summer school conference in Ireland that cash is shrinking in day-to-day use but growing as a stockpile. “The total stock of banknotes is continuing to grow. In transactions, it [the number of notes] is coming down, but in terms of the stock [it is increasing],” Lane said.
Crisis Preparedness, or Managed Panic
The numbers tell their own story. ECB data tracking banknotes in circulation since 2002 shows the stock has risen from about €1bn in 2016 to €1.6bn in June 2026. More than 31m notes are now in circulation, compared with 24m just before the pandemic in 2019. The €50 note was the most popular in 2025, followed by the €100. That’s the official picture: more cash sitting in drawers, wallets and emergency envelopes while the digital payment system that governments and banks keep pushing remains exposed to disruption.
The rise in cash has been linked to anxiety over wars and the impact of cyber-attacks on online and contactless payment systems. Last year Marks & Spencer in the UK suffered a sustained cyber-attack which stopped the retailer taking online orders for weeks. The warning from above is blunt enough. If the apps fail, the card terminals fail, or the network goes dark, people are left scrambling for paper money the system keeps telling them they need less and less.
In 2025, EU residents were advised to stockpile enough food, water and essentials for 72 hours in case of an emergency such as this summer’s catastrophic wildfires in France and Spain, floods or storms, as well as potential cyber-attacks or other hostile events. Households were encouraged to have a crisis pack including bottled water, a transistor radio, canned food and cash. The message from Brussels and national capitals is familiar: prepare yourself for the breakdown, because the institutions that manage the continent’s infrastructure are already assuming it.
Fortress Europe’s Emergency Kit
European countries including Austria, Finland, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands have already recommended that citizens keep between €70 and €100 per household, enough to pay for essentials for 72 hours should online and mobile apps go down. That’s not a minor household tip. It’s a quiet admission that the payment systems ordinary people are pushed into can fail, and when they do, the burden lands on households, not on the banks, platforms or public authorities that built the dependency.
The ECB says cash is a critical part of “national crisis preparedness”, describing its shrinking use for day-to-day purchases amid an increase in people keeping banknotes as a “paradox”. Lane also referenced the need for legislation to ensure networks of cash machines remain a feature of every high street across the EU. The language is bureaucratic, but the meaning is plain: the monetary system wants the efficiency of digital control, yet it still needs physical cash as a backup when the network stutters.
Who Cash Still Serves
Olive McCarthy, professor at University College Cork with an interest in financial inclusion, warned against treating cash as something to be used only when everything else has already gone wrong. “While advice to maintain cash for emergencies is well made, and serves to remind us all to be prepared when digital systems let us down, it is essential that cash does not become viewed merely as a backup measure. If we stop using it when there isn’t a crisis, it might not be easy to use it when there is,” she said.
McCarthy also pointed to privacy and convenience, and said cash was “inclusive”, available to elderly and vulnerable citizens including victims of domestic abuse who may depend on cash if their partner is controlling their spending. It was also a tool to help children with financial literacy and budgeting, she added. Those are the people the system remembers only when the screens go black. Until then, the march toward contactless everything continues, with the ECB and national governments treating resilience as a household chore rather than a public obligation.
The result is a familiar European arrangement. The institutions that celebrate digital efficiency now tell people to keep paper money under the mattress, bottled water in the cupboard and a transistor radio on standby. The state calls it preparedness. Ordinary people call it getting ready for the next failure.