DIGITAL TREND: The share of debit and credit card transactions made via mobile wallets more than doubled between March 2020 and March 2022
A quarter of all debit and credit card transactions made in Australia are now made using a mobile wallet (25%), up from 10% in the March quarter of 2020, according to figures from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).
The figures also show that mobile wallet payments made with a debit card now account for 27% of all card payments by volume compared with 21% for mobile credit card transactions.
Overall, the majority of transactions in Australia are now made using electronic payment methods such as physical and digital credit and debit cards and account-to-account transactions via the country’s New Payments Platform, and consumers made an average of 650 electronic payments per year in 2021/2022 compared with “about 300 a decade earlier”, the bank reports.
“The use of cash for day-to-day payments has been declining for many years,” the RBA adds.
“This trend accelerated during the pandemic as consumers and businesses preferred to use electronic payment methods for in-person transactions — particularly contactless cards and mobile wallets — and more transactions were conducted online, where cash is not an option.
“For some consumers, this shift is likely to be enduring. For example, in a recent survey commissioned by the Bank, around a quarter of respondents reported that their reduction in transactional use of cash over the pandemic was likely to be permanent.”
One in four card payments in Australia are now made using a mobile wallet was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.