The drop is likely because inflation dropped, also looking at actual percentage numbers it looks like the popularity of euros already was low and dropped only slightly (e.g. ~35% -> ~30%)
Part of the experience that makes visiting countries with a different currency awesome is that you have no idea what the actual worth is of your spending. Euro is convenient though
Yeah, the joy of finding out after your vacation what you paid for things and what conversion fees were added is truly unparalleled.
Why wait until you get home? Don’t you have a bank app on the phone where you can see the withdrawals immediately after the purchase?
So the banking app doesn’t really change the conundrum either: I get to learn what I actually paid after my money is gone. Granted though, the feedback loop is shorter.
And then: I don’t use banking apps, no. I find them a step in the wrong direction too, because they marry my finances with (exactly) a smartphone with an approved version of Android or iOS. Or in other words: a random proprietary standard. The more people use banking apps, the less attention going to the open standard, namely the website. And thus people become more dependent on approved versions of Android/iOS.
Now to get into my bank’s website, I need to use a TAN generator device. And using that thing on the go is unfortunately inconvenient. FIDO would be awesome, but alas, apparently banks would rather push their apps with half-baked security than implement a decent authentication standard.
You jest, and generally you’re right, but my experience looking at my bank account after staying in Poland for a week was “wow, I only spent how much???”
The cost of living where I live has risen dramatically since the global financial crisis, but wages have stayed the same.
The usefulness of a shared currency has significantly decreased with the prevalence of digital banking and automatic conversion via bank cards. Meanwhile the 00’s & '10s were a nasty lesson in what the liabilities of a shared currency are.
I think the major benefit is for companies not having to take different currency values into account.
