European Central Bank: Eurozone Consumer Payments Report

The European Central Bank has released its “Euro Area Consumer Payments Report”, with the following key findings:

• Consumers mainly use cash for point-of-sale (POS) and person-to-person (P2P) payments: 73% of POS and P2P transactions use cash, while 27% use non-cash payment instruments;
• By value, cash transactions accounted for 48% of all transactions, while credit card transactions accounted for 41%;
• Credit cards are the main non-cash payment method (24%);
• 38% of card transactions use contactless technology;
• Eurozone citizens make an average of 1.6 POS and P2P transactions per day, with an average transaction value of €25.6;
• 48% of POS and P2P transactions are everyday retail purchases made in local shops, and 19% are made in restaurants, bars, cafes and hotels.

4% of online transactions are paid with cash

There are no comparable data for remote payments in Germany, but 96% of online transactions outside Germany use non-cash instruments, including credit cards (49% of online transactions), electronic payment solutions (27%) and credit transfers (10%); 4% of online transactions use cash (e.g. cash on delivery);

Cash is important to 55% of consumers

49% of respondents prefer to use credit cards or other cashless payment tools (43% in 2016); 27% prefer cash, down from 32% in 2016, and the remaining 24% have no opinion. When asked about the importance of cash, 55% of respondents believe that it is important or very important to still have the option to pay with cash in the future.

34% of consumers use cash as a means of storage

Cash was also considered as an alternative form of savings for precautionary motives, as 34% of respondents store cash at home or in a safe place.

40% of consumers are using less cash during the pandemic

According to another survey conducted on behalf of the ECB in July 2020 in all euro area countries on the impact of the pandemic on cash trends, 40% of respondents have reduced their cash usage since the start of the pandemic, with nearly 90% of them intending to continue using less cash after the pandemic ends (46% certain and 41% likely).

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