This paper analyses cash and cashless payment instruments in Germany. After a description of developments in a national and international context, we will compile a critical overview of iterature on cost calculations and on the importance of payments media for different countries.

Against the background of the criticism of these studies, we will present an independent and largely „demand-based“ approach in Section 3 on the economic significance or cost of cash and cashless payments instruments without conducting a survey of our own. It can be interpreted as an addition to the supply-based cost studies which have predominated in literature up to now. All in all, it accounts for somewhere in the region of 2% to 3% of GDP. However, these figures do not take qualitative factors into consideration.