HOBOKEN, N.J.–While credit unions are required to watch for dirty money, just how dirty is money (and debit and credit cards) really? A new “germ score” offers some (semi-scary) results
A new study that tested for bacteria across a number of surfaces offers some answers.
Conducted by LendEDU, the study included various bill and coin denominations as well as plastic cards.
“The device returns a germ score that is quite easy to understand: the higher the number, the dirtier the surface and vice versa,” LendEDU reported. “For reference, food establishment surfaces should have a germ score of 10 or less to be considered sanitary.”
The findings make clear: Currency and plastic cards would fail in the food industry.
“After testing the front and back of 41 different debit and credit cards, 27 different bills, and 12 different coins, and calculating the average germ scores for each payment based on the results, debit and credit cards turned out to be the dirtiest payment method,” LendEDU reported. “This comes as a bit of a surprise, as one might expect cash to be the filthiest since cash stays in circulation a lot longer and can travel across the country by changing hands. However, debit and credit card usage numbers have quickly caught up to cash’s figures; in fact, debit cards are actually the most commonly used payment today.”
‘More Germs Than a Toilet Seat’
LendEDU pointed to research from Mastercard and the University of Oxford, which found the average bank note is home to 26,000 types of bacteria including E. Coli. “And the average coin has more germs than on a toilet seat!”
“So, compared to some other things that are known to be quite dirty, like subway poles in Manhattan or bathrooms in Penn Station, our payment methods are essentially just as germ-ridden, on average,” LendEDU added.
In fact, LendEDU said it found in the case of debit and credit cards, they are actually dirtier, on average, than those two things, while cash and coins are both dirtier than a subway pole and slightly cleaner than a bathroom in Penn Station, which sees more than 650,000 people on an average workday
‘Dirtiest Thing Tested’
“However, it was pretty fascinating to find that the dirtiest payment card we tested was filthier than any other infamously dirty thing we tested around New York City, such as a CitiBike, McDonald’s door handle, or park bench,” the company said. “Based on the data that we collected through this project, credit cards carried a lot more germs than debit cards did. On both the front side and backside, credit cards were dirtier than debit cards.”
According to LendEDU, another interesting trend was that the average front sides of both debit and credit cards were cleaner than the backsides.
“While it was a temporary pain when merchants across the country began switching to card payment via chip insertion instead of swiping the strip, perhaps they were unintentionally onto something,” LendEDU said. “One could argue that it would make sense that using the chip instead of the magnetic strip to pay for things with a card is a cleaner process. While only a small portion of the card is used when paying via chip, the entire length of the card is swiped when using the magnetic strip found on the backside.”
Other Filthy Findings
Among the other Germ Score findings, LendEDU reported:
- After averaging together the individual germ scores for each bill denomination, we found that $5 bills, with an average germ score of 216, were the most germ-ridden.
- Posting an average germ score of 40, the cleanest bill denomination was the $100. When you think about the usage of $5 bills compared to $100 bills, it is not a big surprise to see that commonly-used fives are much dirtier than hundreds, which change hands sparingly.
- Of all the various types of coins, quarters, with an average germ score of 239, actually were found to be the dirtiest on average. Meanwhile, dimes posted an average germ score of 75, which made them the cleanest coin.
The full study can be found here.