In 2014 around 398.7 billion cashless payments were carried out worldwide. This is an increase over the previous year of 8.9% and still lies above the growth rate of global Gross Domestic Product, which reached 7.6% in the same year.
Burgeoning cashless payments in China, India and other Asian countries and the growing acceptance of cashless payment methods in Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific region including Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are pushing this increase. This data comes from the World Payments Report 2015, which has now been presented by the Capgemini consultancy and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
According to the report, in 2013, 19.9 billion transactions were carried out cashlessly in Germany, an increase of 9.5%. This means that on average each resident has paid without cash or transferred money 247 times. It’s the Finns, though, who carry out the most cashless payments in the world, at 451 transactions per resident. The highest growth, on the other hand, is in China: 37.7%. This was triggered to a large extent by further opening up of the domestic market for card payments via foreign suppliers. At the same time, the number of transactions carried out via mobile devices increased by 170% to a total of 4.5 billion.
The volume of hidden transactions across the world also increased, reaching an estimated 10% proportion of the total market share in 2014. Hidden transactions are payments that do not take place via banks, but via, for example, mobile apps, digital wallets or virtual payment systems such as Bitcoin.
The complete World Payments Report can be downloaded for free. (Source: Capgemini/rf)