Consumer spending in September has risen at its fastest pace for six months with household expenditure up at its highest rate since March and the increase in high street shopping for a year, Pádraig Hoare.

Online shopping is gradually replacing face-to-face spending, as the growth in consumer spending continues to slow.

Changes introduced as part of last year’s budget which raised the limit for what customers can spend with contactless payments has helped the number of transactions double in just six months.

Ireland is fast moving towards becoming a cashless society, with new data from Visa showing a 12.7% rise in card spending last year to €31.7bn. Visa Europe, which issued the figures for 2015, said that, by the end of last year, there were 5.7m cards in the Irish market. Around 80% of them are debit cards.