The European Central Bank published euro area payments statistics for the first half of 2024, showing a 7.4% increase in the number of non-cash payment transactions to 72.1 billion and a 1.9% rise in total value to EUR 113.5 trillion versus the first half of 2023. Card payments accounted for 56% of transactions by number, followed by credit transfers (22%), direct debits (15%) and e-money payments (6%). Card payments rose 10.3% to 40.1 billion and EUR 1.5 trillion in value, with an average value of about EUR 39 per transaction; contactless card payments increased 13.2% to 25.8 billion and EUR 0.7 trillion in value, representing 79% of non-remote card payments by number. Credit transfers increased 7.7% to 15.7 billion, with value up 1.7% to EUR 105.2 trillion, accounting for 93% of total non-cash payment value; electronically initiated credit transfers outnumbered paper-initiated transactions by around 16 to 1. Direct debits grew 2.7% to 11.0 billion and EUR 5.3 trillion in value, while e-money payments declined 2.7% to 4.2 billion but increased 6.6% in value to EUR 0.3 trillion; payment cards in circulation rose 4.4% to 720.6 million, ATMs fell 3.0% to about 260.9 thousand, and POS terminals increased 10.1% to about 20.8 million. Across payment infrastructures, 34 euro area retail payment systems processed about 52.1 billion transactions worth EUR 25.1 trillion, with instant credit transfers representing 15% of credit transfer volume and 4% of value processed by these systems; large-value payment systems settled 72.0 million payments worth EUR 222.5 trillion. The ECB noted that the first-half 2024 figures are provisional and may be revised.

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