Non-cash payments in Italy double past 16 billion

Payment cards drove the majority of non-cash growth, rising to roughly 75 percent of total transactions in 2025 from 63 percent in 2018.

Physical point-of-sale card payments expanded from 6 billion to over 10 billion between 2022 and 2025, recording an annual growth rate of 15.7 percent.

Debit cards comprised 71.2 percent of POS card payments, followed by prepaid cards at 17.4 percent and credit cards at 11.6 percent.

Remote card payments reached 2.7 billion operations, while contactless methods accounted for 88 percent of physical POS transactions and mobile devices reached 24 percent.

Digital credit transfers nearly doubled to 1.8 billion transactions, with instant transfers jumping to 298 million.

Regional disparities narrowed as non-cash transactions per capita grew 121 percent in southern Italy between 2020 and 2025, compared to 88 percent in the Center.

Cash infrastructure contracted sharply, with bank branches dropping over 40 percent from 34,000 in 2008 to roughly 19,000 in 2025, while ATMs fell 20 percent.

Despite closures, 98 percent of citizens remain within five kilometers of a cash access point.

Public administration followed suit, with credit transfers making up 93 percent of local authority payment volume.