Like all sectors of the economy, the payment industry is caught up in the issue of its environmental impact. An Oxford Economics study commissioned by EDPIA on Germany, Finland and Italy shows that cash payments have a carbon impact 20 times greater than card payments. The difference in carbon emissions between the three countries is only a factor of 2 for card payments, but a factor of 5 for cash payments. This is largely due to the travel required to load and withdraw cash from ATMs in a sparsely populated country like Finland.