Finns make more card payments in Q3

The customers of Finnish banks and payment institutions made a total of 663 million card payments in the period from July–September 2024, representing an increase of 25 million payments (4%) year-on-year, said The Bank of Finland on Monday.

About 93% of the growth in the number of card payments is attributable to contactless payments, which amounted to approximately 23 million transactions more than a year earlier.

The customers of Finnish banks and payment institutions paid with a contactless payment a total of 420 million times, representing a growth of 6% year-on-year.

The most common type of card payment was contactless payment, accounting for 63% of the number of payments. The proportion of contactless payments in July–September 2024 was the highest in the history of the statistics.

The Bank of Finland has collected and published these quarterly statistics only from the beginning of 2022. The proportion of contactless payments out of all card payments grew by 1.2 percentage points year-on-year.

The customers of Finnish banks and payment institutions made contactless payments amounting to the total value of EUR 7.4 billion in the third quarter of 2024, which was 17% more than in the same period a year earlier.

The aggregate value of card payments in July–September was EUR 19.4 billion, or 2% more than a year earlier.

The amounts are usually smaller in contactless payments than in other card payments. The average customer purchase was EUR 18 in a contactless payment and about EUR 49 in other card payments.

Starting from 2024, it has been possible to use a debit card to make contactless payments larger than EUR 50.

A total of 115 million card payments were initiated on a computer or mobile device in the third quarter of 2024, which was 16% more than in the corresponding period last year. The aggregate value of remote card payments (EUR 4.4 billion) grew 12% year-on-year.

The aggregate value of transactions made in other euro area countries using Finnish payment cards in the third quarter of 2024 was EUR 1.7 billion, 11% more than in the corresponding period a year earlier.

The aggregate value of payments made in non-EU countries using Finnish payment cards in the same period totalled EUR 0.4 billion, which was on percent less than a year earlier.