Seven in 10 Cypriots now use card payments for transactions, according to European Central Bank (ECB) data for the first half of 2024.
Cyprus ranks fourth in the Eurozone for card payment adoption at 73% of all transactions, up 0.8% from the first quarter of 2023, trailing only Lithuania (78.1%), Portugal (75%), and Greece (74.1%).
The shift comes as ATM numbers across the Eurozone declined by 3% compared to the first half of 2023, despite commitments from major Cypriot banks to increase their ATM network.
Point-of-sale (POS) terminals across the Eurozone increased by 10.1% to 20.8 million, with 86% supporting contactless payments. Total cashless payments in the euro area rose 7.4% to 72.1 billion transactions.
Card payments represented 56% of all cashless transactions in the Eurozone, followed by credit transfers (22%), direct debits (15%), and e-money payments (6%). Contactless card payments surged 13.2% to 25.8 billion transactions, with values up 13.1% to 0.7 trillion euros.
In Cyprus, credit transfers accounted for 15.7% of cashless payments, while e-money transactions represented 3.7% of the total. The Eurozone averaged two payment cards per resident, with an average transaction value of 39 euros.
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