• issue banknotes- wypuścić/ wydać banknoty
• candy bar- batonik

NAGRANIE WYMOWY: 

In 1661, Stockholms Banco, the precursor to the Swedish central bank, issued Europe’s first banknotes, on thick paper bearing the bank’s seal and eight signatures. But…

“I don’t use cash any more, for anything,” said Louise Henriksson, 26, a teaching assistant. “You just don’t need it. Shops don’t want it; lots of banks don’t even have it. Even for a candy bar or a paper, you use a card or phone.”

• retailers- sprzedawcy: właściciele sklepów
• entitled to …  – uprawniony do …
• street vendors- sprzedawcy uliczni
• make up barely 2%- stanowić jedynie 2%

Swedish buses have not taken cash for years, it is impossible to buy a ticket on the Stockholm metro with cash, retailers are legally entitled to refuse coins and notes, and street vendors – and even churches – increasingly prefer card or phone payments. According to central bank the Riksbank, cash transactions made up barely 2% of the value of all payments made in Sweden  last year.

• astonishingly- zaskakująco/ niespodziewanie
• ATM- bankomat
• average- średni/ przeciętny

And astonishingly, about 900 of Sweden’s 1,600 bank branches no longer keep cash on hand or take cash deposits – and many, especially in rural areas, no longer have ATMs.

 “I think, in practice, Sweden will pretty much be a no cash society within about five years,” said Niklas Arvidsson, an associate professor specialising in payment systems innovation at Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). 

Cards are now the main form of payment: according to Visa, Swedes use them more than three times as often as the average European, making an average of 207 payments per card annually.

• take off– tutaj: “chwycić”/ gwałtownie zyskać na popularności
• develop jointly- opracować wspólnie/ rozwinąć wspólnie
• hand over- przekazać/ wręczyć

More recently, mobile phone apps have also taken off in spectacular fashion. Swish, a hugely popular app developed jointly with the major banks,  uses phone numbers to allow anyone with a smartphone to transfer money from one bank account to another in real time.

“Swish has pretty much killed cash for most people,” said Arvidsson. “It has the same features as a cash payment – real-time, the same as handing over a banknote.”

• parishioner- parafianin
• drop contribution– tutaj: dać na tacę

Even Swedish churches have adapted, displaying their phone numbers at the end of each service and asking parishioners to use Swish to drop their contribution into the virtual Sunday collection. One Stockholm church said last year only 15% of its donations were in cash; the remainder were all by phone.

• 0:30′ adapt to … – dopasować / dostosować się do …
• 01:20′ entirely – w pełni
• 01:29′ the need for cash based services – zapotrzebowanie na usługi gotówkowe
• 01:50′ marginalize – marginalizować / spychać na margines

Watch HERE the short presentation of Sweden as a no cash society

Lekcja opracowana na podstawie artykułu: ‘Sweden Leads the Race to Become a Cashless Society’, opublikowanego na theguardian.com