Irish Customers Increasingly Coming Around to Mobile Payments in Contactless Form

There’s an interesting battle shaping up for the future of the Irish consumer, now straddling the line between cash and contactless mobile payments. While there are still plenty of cash-only shoppers in Ireland, an increasing number of Irish consumers are taking on mobile payments in contactless operations, which resulted in card payments jumping in the second half of 2017, according to new reports.

Contactless was one of the big gainers of 2017, the report noted, but online and mobile banking was hardly a slouch either. Better than one in three credit transfers took place online, the report noted, with a total of 46 million transactions. Card payments were up 20.4 percent against the same time the previous year, showing steady growth.

That’s up better than 27 percent on the same time last year. What’s more, there was an almost corresponding drop in the amount of cash taken at ATMs, an amount which dropped for the second quarter in a row. Checks, meanwhile, are on the decline as well, but still account for over 20 million transactions in the field.

The survey’s writers noted “Payment card usage is growing fast but cash remains the main payment instrument in Ireland and in most European countries. Assuming current trends continue, we estimate it will be at least 2020 before payment cards overtake cash in Ireland.”

Which is rational enough; places that are used to cash will stay used to cash for some time. This is why you see cash doing so well in the United States and Japan. While the younger generations are more inclined to make a move—they’re less used to cash on the whole—it’s still a gradual shift. As the older generation pulls in its horns on spending and the younger generation takes over, you see the shift accelerate like you’re seeing right now.

Of course, given that Generation Z—the ones after the Millennials—seems to favor cash over mobile, this trend may not be a permanent one, but rather a momentary aberration that needs to be planned for anyway. The Millennials are too big a market to shrug off, but their change may not be permanent.