The European Central Bank (ECB) have published their 2015 statistics on non-cash payments in the EU*, which comprise indicators on access to and use of payment services and terminals by the public, as well as volumes and values of transactions processed through payment systems. Statistics are published for each EU Member State, in addition to EU and euro area aggregates and comparative data.

Main payment systems

The total number of non-cash payments in the EU, comprising all types of payment services2, increased by 8.5% to 112.1 billion in 2015 compared with the previous year. Card payments accounted for 47% of all transactions, while credit transfers accounted for 26% and direct debits for 21%., and cheque usage continued to decline.

Use of main payment services in the EU

(Note: Data have been partially estimated for periods prior to 2010, as methodological changes were implemented in previous years and some corresponding data are not available. The historical estimation done by the ECB ensures comparability of figures over the entire period. Statistics are also collected on e-money payment transactions and other payment services, which accounted for 3.1% of the total number of EU transactions in 2015.)

Large-value payment systems

During 2015, 12 systems settled 773 million payments with a total value of €715 trillion in the EU.6 The two main LVPSs in the euro area (TARGET2 and EURO1/STEP1)7 settled 144 million transactions amounting to €553 trillion in 2015, i.e. 77% of the total value. In the non-euro area EU countries, CHAPS Sterling8 in the United Kingdom is the largest LVPS in terms of value and number of transactions.

Large-value payment systems in 2015

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6 Among the LVPSs that also process retail payments, CERTIS - a Czech Republic system - is the main contributor in terms of number of transactions to the EU aggregate figure, with 576 million. In terms of value, CERTIS settled €12.6 trillion during 2015.

7 TARGET2 is the second-generation Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross settlement Express Transfer system. It is operated by the Eurosystem and settles payments in euro in central bank money.

EURO1/STEP1 is an EU-wide multilateral net large-value payment system for euro payments operated by EBA CLEARING. Payments are processed in EURO1 throughout the day and final balances are settled at the end of the day in TARGET2.

8 CHAPS Sterling handles sterling-denominated interbank payments and it settled 38 million transactions amounting to €94.3 trillion in 2015.

9 CLS is a worldwide clearing and settlement system that settles FX transactions on a payment-versus-payment basis.

* The full set of payment statistics can be downloaded from the Statistical DataWarehouse(SDW).The "Reports" section of the SDW also contains pre-formatted tables with payment statistics for the last five years.