There was a 76 per cent increase in the number of Visa card transactions in Ireland last year, according to new figures published today.

The data shows that cardholder expenditure amounted to €13 billion in 2011, a rise of 48 per cent on the previous year with 177.9 million transactions carried out.

As a result, €1 in €8 of consumer spend in Ireland is now on a Visa card.

According to Visa Europe, there was a 28 per cent increase in the number of Visa cards - debit, credit and prepaid - in the market. The company estimates there are about 3.4 million Visa cards currently in use in the country.

Spend on Visa cards in Europe grew 14 per cent in 2011, totalling €1.16 trillion. This growth now means that €1 in every €7 of consumer spending in Europe is on a Visa card, up from €1 in €8 in 2010 and €1 in €18 in 2000.

Visa Europe said it processed nearly one billion transactions every month last year, registering a 19 per cent year-on-year growth as the number of processed transactions reached 11.8 billion.

The growth in debit cards continued with 16 per cent year-on-year growth in both value and volume of consumer transactions made at point of sale.

Nearly 80 per cent of Visa spend is on debit cards in Europe and this is likely to increase with both Bank of Ireland and AIB introducing Visa Debit cards this year.

Fraud losses on Visa cards in Europe reached an all time low in 2011, with the fraud to sales ratio falling by 27 per cent to 0.038 per cent. Visa Europe attributed the decline in fraud losses to the successful implementation of EMV chip technology.

Visa Europe said a total of 30 million contactless cards - which are usually used to smaller transactions - were issued last year and forecast that by the end of 2012 there will be over 50 million such cards in circulation.

More than 60,000 retail outlets in the UK already use the technology and this is expected to increase.

Bank of Ireland announced in July that was to introduce contactless Visa Debit cards locally. The cards, which are limited to transactions of €15, enable customers to pay for smaller items in stores in less than a second, simply by holding the card over a reader in the shop.

Visa Europe reported total revenues for the year of more than €1 billion.