If we look at Germany, for instance, the Bundesbank found in a recent survey on payment behaviour that the share of cash transactions has fallen to 58%. 2 The trend is obvious: in the previous studies from 2020 and 2017, cash payments accounted for 60% and 74%, respectively. Cash usage has experienced a remarkable decline, reinforced by COVID-19.
In Germany, one of the main effects we saw was the growing popularity of contactless payments – in particular in the form of card payments. While roughly 20% of smartphone owners have already paid using digital wallets, total mobile payments still account for only 3% of all daily payment transactions. In contrast, mobile payments saw a tremendous uptake in Spain thanks to "Bizum".