The potential for reducing cash-related misbehaviour is a big arrow in the quiver of the advocates of cashlessness. It’s easy to count who loses out in the transition: not just the mugger but the market stallholder, the vendor of contraband booze and rolling tobacco, the odd-job plumber and anyone else who routinely fails to account to the taxman. The Spanish government, teetering on the brink of the next episode of Europe’s debt crisis, is proposing to outlaw all cash transactions involving more than 2,500 euros in order to quell the black economy and maximise tax collection – but also proposing to exempt non-residents, so cash-rich British bank robbers can rest assured that they will still be able to live it large on the Costas.