I digital payments continue to grow in Italy, reaching nearly 400 billion euros. This is what emerges from the Innovative Payments Observatory of the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, presented on the occasion of the conference “Innovative Payments: don't look back”.
“Data on digital payments in Italy in 2022 show that what was recorded in 2021 was not just a rebound after the collapse in consumption, but that the pandemic crisis has structurally changed consumer habits, who find these means increasingly convenient, faster and safe, leading the market to grow at a faster rate than pre-covid. According to ECB data on the number of per capita card transactions recorded in 2021, Italy is one of the fastest growing countries in the last year (+33,6%)”, says Alessandro Perego, scientific director of the Digital Innovation Observatories of the Milan Polytechnic.
Digital payments up 40% in 2022
According to the Polimi study, in 2022 transactions with instruments of pagamento digital recorded double-digit growth, equal to 40% of consumption, almost i 400 billion. The figure includes both payments based on cards and wallets - which reached 390 billion euros, up by +18% compared to 2021 - and account-based payments, equal to around 7 billion euros in transactions.
"The payments sector is also proving to be lively and innovative in our country, demonstrating a clear change in trend: more and more consumers and merchants are choosing these tools every day" says Valeria Portale, Director of the Innovative Payments Observatory, who then underlines: “Despite everything, at the end of 2022 the new Italian government has taken a more hesitant approach, in which the threshold where it is not allowed to accept cash payments has been raised to 5.000 euros, a strategy in contrast with the current path taken to combat tax evasion and improve processes and services”.
Boom of contactless payments and innovative Payments
Lo smartphone once again confirms itself as a protagonist in the payments sector, thanks to its now widespread diffusion (in 2021 it was used by almost two thirds of the world's population) and the ability to offer an increasingly optimal user experience compared to traditional tools, both for in-store payments and in the online ones, underlines the Observatory.
The general growth is reflected in all components, both in the more traditional ones such as cards and paymentsContactless reach 186 billion euros (+45% on 2021), both in new payment methods (Innovative Payments) which recorded a value of 20,3 billion (+107%).
Within the latter sector, they are the masters mobile and wearable tools (wearable in Italian). Last year, in fact, Italians increasingly used smartphones or wearable devices, such as smartwatches, to make payments in stores, for a total of 16,3 billion euros in transactions (+122% compared to 2021).
Among the payment-related services that are arousing more and more interest among consumers, the report underlines, there is certainly the Buy now pay later (Bnpl). 13% of Italians stated that they have already used this type of service for one or more online and/or in-store purchases, while 33% intend to use it in the future (a percentage that rises to 67% if we also consider the undecided ). In 2022, Bnpl transactions reached 2,3 billion euros, with a growth of +253% compared to 2021.
