For example, survey evidence across seventeen EU countries shows that a vast majority of consumers expect to continue to use digital services as often as they do now or even more often.9 However, while the pandemic has prompted a move away from cash for some, it likely remains the most common way of making small retail payments, considering cash payments accounted for 73 per cent of all physical retail payments in 2019 across the euro area, (but 48 per cent of the value).10 Indeed the recent ECB SPACE survey, found that 56 per cent of people surveyed in Ireland thought it was important or very important to have the option to pay in cash, (slightly higher than the euro area at 54 per cent).
Graph 10  Household Consumption per Capita December 2019 = 100 index  Goods  index  Services  105  105  Trend (2014–2018)  100  100  95  95  90  90  85  85  80  80  75  2018  2022  2018  2022  75  Sources: ABS; RBA  Looking forward, we expect a period of subdued consumption growth, especially in per capita terms.