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Rise in number of shoppers using phones and watches to pay at the till

AnyFans 2025-09-28

By Alan Healy,Irishexaminer.com

New analysis carried out by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) found that 1.6 billion contactless point of sale (POS) payments, valued at €28.3bn, were made in shops, restaurants and other retail outlets in the 12 months to June.

The report reveals that contactless payments accounted for 87.9% of all card payments in the first half of the year and more than half of all contactless payments are now made using mobile wallets such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, rather than cards.

“The use of smartphones and watches are growing in popularity and are the preferred payment device over physical cards for many consumers,” Gillian Byrne of the BPFI said. “Some 58.2% of contactless payments were made using mobile wallets rather than cards in the ﬁrst half of 2025, up from 52% in the same period of 2024.”

The analysis found that with an average of 306 contactless payments made per person each year, consumers are now tapping their cards or phones almost once every day with an average spend each time of €17.98.

Cash payments

As the level of contactless spending rises, the use of cash continues to decline. Less than half of POS payments in Ireland were made with cash in 2024, according to a European Central Bank (ECB) survey, down from about 54% two years earlier.

Despite the drop, there are continued efforts to allow consumers continued access to cash. In May, the government enacted the Access to Cash Act, which will put in place a framework to ensure sufficient and effective access to cash infrastructure is available in Ireland.

Under the legislation, the Government can prescribe the percentage of the population that must be within a specified distance of not less than 5km and not more than 10km of an ATM and cash service point such as a bank branch or post office. The minister for finance must also set the minimum number of ATMs per 100,000 people in each region.

A spokesperson for the Department of Finance told the Irish Examiner that consultation with the Central Bank of Ireland on the access to cash criteria has been undertaken and that regulations setting out the criteria will be finalised and completed later this year.