I know that the 500€ bill ceases to exist on the new series of bank notes (as they capped it at 200€) but those who possess the older series with that denomination can still use it as legal tender, but is it that common for Europeans to have a 200€ bill in their wallet? I’ve heard as to why they ceased on printing 500€ is mainly relating to both criminal activity or money laundering as that denomation has been abused as such.
200€ is the second highest one, although the older 500€ bill is no longer in circulation. Do ATM’s disperse either 500 & 200€ bills regarding cash withdrawals within that amount or do they just give that amount in smaller denominations equating to that much (like consisting of 20, 50 or 100€ bills)? If ATM’s don’t just give out a 200€ bill when withdrawing that much or more, does one have to visit a bank (branch) to get one?
I have lived in Europe for 6 of the past 7 years, never seen a €200 bill, I have used €500 ones before when I moved here and wanted to bring some cash with me in case of issues with cards, but realistically who uses cash nowadays?
Germans
I used to make fun of them not trusting digital money as much as the rest of the developed world, but I was wrong and they are right; Germany is one of the few places in Europe not totally dependent on Visa and Mastercard.
Cash exists for a reason such as in the case of power outages, most payment systems are down in that type of scenario, since those are reliant on electricity so cash is a back up.
Yes, but you can just not buy things for the amount of time it takes for the power to come back on. Even on a nation wide blackout card machines still work, don’t ask me how but I can definitely confirm this for sure since I was already living in Spain when the blackout happened and I went to the supermarket and got some things during the first hours. If a blackout goes on for long enough that I need to have money stashed there would be much bigger issues than that.