Online and mobile banking payments jump 60% since 2018 with cheque usage halving over the same period – BPFI Payments Monitor
Groceries and restaurant dining accounted for significant majority of daily card payments in Q2 2023 with daily spend in the two sectors having reached €43.7 million and €16.1 million, respectively.
Friday 13th October 2023 – The latest BPFI Payments Monitor from Banking & Payments Federation Ireland reveals that the number of online and mobile banking payments grew by 4% year on year in H1 2023 to 73.1 million, the highest semi-annual volume since that BPFI data series began in 2016.
Cheque volumes continued to decline, down 12.1% year on year to 7.5 million in H1 2023. These are the lowest volumes since at least 2008.
The report also shows that there were more than 604 million payments on credit and debit cards valued at almost €22.7 billion in Q2 2023, according to data from the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI). Groceries/perishables and restaurants/dining accounted for a vast majority of these payments with the daily spend in the two sectors having reached €43.7 million and €16.1 million, respectively, closely followed by €13.3 million spent daily at fuel stations and other automotive retail outlets. While most activity was in person, in Ireland, Irish cardholders also spent about €3.9 million on restaurants/dining outside Ireland.
Commenting on the report, Gillian Byrne, Head of Payments, BPFI said: “Today’s report shows a continued rise in the volumes of online and mobile banking payments in Ireland. In the past five years these types of payments have jumped by 60% between H1 2018 and H1 2023 and direct debt payments increased by 23%. In contrast, cheque usage fell by more than half over the same period.”
“In terms of credit and debit card payments, there were more than 6.6 million payments processed per day in Q2 2023. In-person payments outnumbered online payments by about three to one with some 4.5 million card payments per day and daily spending reaching almost €120 million. Contactless payments accounted for almost 85% of these transactions in Ireland. Interestingly, 41% of contactless payments were made with mobile wallets instead of physical cards.”
ENDS/
Data Series: All payments monitor data from January 2016 onwards is available in Microsoft Excel format (*.xls) in the BPFI Payments Monitor report data series. The BPFI Payments Monitor report data series since January 2016 is available to download here.
Note: Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) represents the banking, payments and fintech sector in Ireland. Together with its affiliates, the Federation of International Banks in Ireland, and the Fintech & Payments Association of Ireland, BPFI has over 125 member institutions and associates, including licensed domestic and foreign banks and institutions operating in the financial marketplace here.
Contact: Fiona Murphy, Head of Communications, 087 9740046, Fiona.murphy@bpfi.ie or Jillian Heffernan, Director of Communications, 087 9016880, jillian.heffernan@bpfi.ie.
