Irish consumers spent a combined €28 million per day on contactless card payments in October, according to figures released by the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI).
The research shows that the total spent by Irish consumers on contactless transactions for the month was €870 million, as 55.8 million contactless payments accounted for almost half of all card payments.
“The figures do show a fall-off on previous months,” said Gill Murphy, head of payment schemes at the BPFI, “with usage falling to its lowest level since June with Level 5 Covid-19 restrictions taking effect from mid-October.”
In the two days prior to the entry into Level 5, contactless payments were up 22.2 per cent, while they declined by 15.4 per cent in the five days afterwards.
Spending “recovered somewhat” in the weeks that followed, according to the BPFI. The value of cash withdrawals fell to their lowest level since June, when the State was emerging from its first lockdown.
“We would expect to see a greater share of card spending online and higher average payment values in the last two months of the year. This will likely reduce the contactless share of payments,” said the BPFI.
