'Keep small stash of cash at home for use in case of power outages or cyber attacks,' households to be advised

"Recommendations, to be delivered over the winter months by the Department of Defence, will be part of guidelines on how to be resilient during an emergency. This will reverse previous security warnings, directed at older people in particular, that cash should never be hoarded. Central banks and civil-protection agencies in other European countries, including Sweden and Austria, have begun telling citizens to keep enough cash to cover at least a few days' groceries."

"There is a particular concern to ensure households are ready for an extended failure of electronic payments, when they would need cash in order to buy fuel and food. The need to deliver formal advice was prompted by the record-breaking Storm Éowyn last January, which left many businesses along the west coast without card facilities and led to queues at ATMs. A recent study published by the European Central Bank (ECB) found there was a surge in demand for bank notes during four recent crises."

"In Sweden, households are being encouraged to have enough cash for a week's worth of necessities. On Tuesday, the Bank of Portugal became the latest to issue a formal recommendation to have physical cash at home to be able to cope in a crisis. There was a spike in cash withdrawals in Spain the day after the blackout as households restocked bank notes after using them to buy essentials."

Department of Defence will deliver winter guidelines advising households to keep a small-denomination cash reserve for emergencies. Central banks and civil-protection agencies across Europe, including Sweden, Austria and Portugal, recommend keeping enough cash for several days' groceries. Authorities view physical cash as critical for national crises such as power outages, cyberattacks or extended failures of electronic payments. The advice responds to events like Storm Éowyn, which disrupted card facilities and ATMs, and to ECB findings of surges in banknote demand during Covid-19, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Greece's financial crash and a recent Iberian power outage.

Read at Irish Independent