Germans still pay in cash comparatively often. But the payment trend in Germany is also moving towards plastic cards and mobile phones.
Despite the declining share of cash when shopping, German consumers still pay with notes and coins at an above-average rate compared to other European countries. On average, German residents paid electronically a total of 304 times per capita in 2023, as the management consultancy Boston Consultig Group (BCG) writes in the new edition of its annual “Global Payment Report”. According to BCG, the use of debit and credit cards as well as smartphones in Germany was in the bottom third.
Norway in front
Last year, Norway was in first place with an average of 815 electronic payment transactions, followed by Luxembourg (753), Ireland (705) and Denmark (675). At the other end of the table, according to BCG, only consumers in Italy (194), Malta (243), Spain (288) and Austria (300) used electronic payment methods.
But the share of cash is also falling in Germany
According to an annual survey by the Bundesbank, consumers in Germany are paying in cash less and less often: in 2008, the cash quota for payments in Germany was 83 percent, last year it was 51 percent, as can be found in the report “Payment behavior in Germany 2023” from July this year.
Forecast: Boom years for the payment industry will soon be over
The financial experts at Boston Consulting Group assume that the share of electronic and digital payment methods worldwide will continue to increase in the next few years – albeit with decreasing profitability for credit card companies, payment service providers, payment app providers and even banks.
BCG estimates global revenues from financial companies last year at $1.8 trillion. This includes, among other things, fees and interest in payment transactions. Payments income has increased by an average of 9 percent annually over the past five years, the authors write. According to the BCG forecast, this could fall to annual growth of 5 percent by 2028. The study authors attribute this, among other things, to the fact that cash payments have already become rare in many countries. Accordingly, according to BCG, the financial and payment industry in the countries concerned can no longer expect any major growth in electronic payment transactions. For the annual study, BCG evaluates, among other things, the statistics from the central banks of the respective countries on payment transactions.
Source: Stern
