Over €28m per day spent using contactless payments in October
In total, 55.8m contactless payments were made throughout October, with over €870m spent this way.
Over €28m was spent using contactless payments each day during October, according to new figures.
The latest contactless payments numbers published by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) show that roughly 1.8m payments were made each day in October of this year.
Contactless payments now make up almost half of all card payments in Ireland.
In total, 55.8m contactless payments were made throughout October, with over €870m spent this way.
Gill Murphy, Head of Payment Schemes at BPFI, said that while the numbers are substantial, they also show a fall-off on usage seen in the months leading to October.
She said: "Contactless payments are still at record numbers and this is further reflected by the fact that they now account for about half of all total credit and debit card payments.
"Interestingly we can see from Central Bank data that when the Level 5 restrictions were introduced on 19 October, consumers responded by increasing spending in the two days before the restrictions took effect (up 22.2% week-on-week) and reducing it in the following five days (down 15.4% week-on-week)."
Ms Murphy said spending recovered somewhat in the weeks since.
The value of cash withdrawals, which had been decreasing since early September, also dropped in October.
Their value fell to levels similar to those last seen in June - the previous month in which Covid-19 restrictions were increased.
“With most retail and hospitality businesses closed throughout November and Christmas-related spending in December, 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," Ms Murphy said.
