How do the Portuguese pay?

The Bank of Portugal recently published the Payment Systems Report for 2018. This report, which reflects the evolution of means of payment in Portugal, gives us a very up-to-date view of what the Portuguese people's payment behavior has been and what trends have been observed. Analyzing the recent past gives us important pointers for the future, and we believe it will for our clients too. We'd like to take this opportunity to share a brief summary.

In 2018, with the growth seen in economic activity, retail payments in Portugal continued their upward trend. In 2018, 2.7 billion retail payment transactions worth 491.5 billion euros were processed, representing an increase of 7.6% in the number of transactions and 7.3% in the value transacted compared to 2017.

In addition to cash payments, which still account for the the majority of payments, cards are the means of payment most used by the Portuguese (87% of payments not made in notes and coins). This is followed by direct debits, credit transfers and checks.

Portugal is among the countries in the European Union with the highest number of bank cards per inhabitant, at the end of 2018 there were more than 30 million cards in Portugal (of which more than 21 million were debit cards). debit).

The Portuguese use their cards mainly for withdrawals and purchases. There has been a trend towards withdrawals (1% increase in number of transactions) to card payments (12% increase in number of transactions). card payments (a 12% increase in the number of transactions), there was an 8.7% increase in the number of Automatic Payment number of Automatic Payment Terminals (APTs) to 349,000 and a reduction of 2.3% in the number of ATMs. of 2.3% in the number of automatic teller machines.

Although 38% of cards and 72% of terminals are already available for contactless payments, only 4% of in-person purchases were made using this technology. Of all purchases made with card, only 4% were made online.

Credit transfers represent more than half of the amount transacted in Portugal and were the instrument with the highest level of growth. growth. This growth trend was common to all electronic means of payment methods.

Although the number of payments by check fell by 12% in 2018, representing a in 2018, representing a reduction of 6.3% in value, there are still an average of average of 120,000 payments by check per day. The amount paid by check in 2018 totaled 89.7 billion euros.

It is also worth noting that in 2018 the Portuguese now have a new solution for making their payments, instant transfers, which can be made in seconds, and which have already accounted for an average of 7,170 payments a day since their launch in September 2018. See the full Banco de Portugal study here