How many pound notes and coins are there in circulation?
According to the Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce: Most money in the UK is already e-money, the amount of cash is less than 20 billion UK pounds (approximately one three-hundredth of the value of transactions processed by banks each day). ‘In the US, by contrast, physical money seems to account for half of all bank deposits.’ …. ‘estimates indicate that some two thirds of all US currency is not in circulation in the US and is unlikely to be repatriated.’ Okay, so assuming that the total of US hard cash is about 829 billion dollars (Figure from Federal Reserve Bank of New York) that would mean approximately 276 billion dollars in hard cash is circulating in the US. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the above figures, all I can be sure of is that there was not much in my pocket when I looked … and if the UK used Euros there would be even less.
