Cashless society in Europe: a winding road

This report analyses offline and online payments for over 25 different European countries, with comparable and the latest available data, aiming to bring figures on the use of different payment methods together in one place. This study was written with one question in mind: where are Europe's countries in their journey to replace cash money with digital-only payment methods?

The study includes several figures, such as:

   
• POS transactions versus e-commerce penetration and market sizes per individual country;
   
• The market share of cash money per country;
   
• How many credit cards are in circulation per head of a country's population;
      
• Which payment brand are the leading per country;
   
• The market share of contactless payments per country;
   
• Whether Apple Pay and/or Google Pay are widely used or not.

Additionally, there is a separate focus on how COVID-19 impacted digital payments in Europe.