Contactless payments now dominate the Irish retail and restaurant landscape with more than 1.5 billion such transactions worth in excess of €25 billion recorded last year, according to new figures released by the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI).
More than half of all contactless transactions are now made using mobile wallets such as Apple or Google Pay, the research shows.
Contactless point of sale (POS) payments, valued at €26.7 billion, were made in shops, restaurants and other retail outlets in 2024, according to its latest Payments Monitor, with such payments accounting for 87 per cent of all POS card payments last year.
A consumer survey by the BPFI also shows that most consumers are aware of and are confident in using many banking and payment technologies, such as instant payments and facial recognition.
However, less than half are familiar with open banking services, which enable customers to share their banking data with third parties to provide additional financial management tools, while only a quarter of consumers are aware of plans for a digital euro.
“We can see from today’s report that contactless payments continue to be very popular with Irish consumers, accounting for almost 90 per cent of all point of sale (POS) card payments made in shops, restaurants and other retail outlets in Ireland last year,” said the BPFI’s head of payments Gillian Byrne.
“Smartphones and watches have emerged as the preferred payment device over physical cards for many consumers. Out of 296 contactless payments made per person in Ireland on Irish cards in 2024, 159 of these were mobile wallet payments.”
She said the rapid adoption of mobile wallets was “not surprising given that Irish consumers have traditionally embraced new banking and payments technology”.
However, she noted some gaps in awareness, particularly the 25 per cent of respondents who said they were aware of open banking tools such as account information services that give a third-party provider access to their bank account to analyse their spending. “Only 40 per cent of those who knew about them said they would be confident using them,” Ms Byrne said.
Only one in four respondents were aware of a potential plan for a digital euro, which will be a digital form of cash, despite the fact that proposals for a digital euro date back to 2020. The European Central Bank (ECB) launched its digital euro project in July 2021 and will decide in October whether to move on to the next phase.
“These results highlight the need for greater consumer awareness of open banking,” Ms Byrne said, adding that it showed the need for ”enhanced consumer confidence in new financial technologies, especially among older consumers”.
