Payment cards issued, either credit or debit card, in the EU-27 as a whole 2000-2022

The number of payment cards issued by financial institutions in the EU-27 was nearly 800 million in 2022. The value of payment card transactions in the Euro area reached almost 1.82 trillion euros in 2018. During the same year, card payments in Europe decreased by over 20 percent.

Debit over credit

Across most of Europe, payment cards almost exclusively consist of debit and credit cards. In 2019, debit cards accounted for approximately 68 billion payments in the European Union. The rise in cashless payments across Europe has continued to rise, as people enjoy the ease associated with non-cash transactions.

POS and ATM

With the rise of non-cash purchases, the need for more point-of-sale terminals has increased. As of 2019, there were almost16.9 million POS stations, processing payments across the European Union. On the other hand, as the need for physical cash has become less dominant, so has the need for ATM’s. Across the EU, the number of ATM’s has seen an annual decrease from 2014.