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# Australians make 768 cashless payments a year
- URL: https://www.benchmarkanalytics.com.au/australia-cashless-payments-per-person-bis-2024/
- Published: 2026-08-28T06:14:44.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-28T06:14:44.000Z
- Description: New BIS data show Australians make more than two cashless payments per person every day, with cards accounting for three-quarters of transactions.
- Author: Nick Hossack
- Tags: BIS, Cashless Payments, Digital Payments, Australia, #payments

Australia is one of the most intensive users of cashless payments among comparable advanced economies, according to the latest Bank for International Settlements payments data.

The BIS Red Book statistics provide internationally comparable data on how people pay. The latest figures cover 2024 and include credit transfers, direct debits, cheques, card and e-money payments and other cashless payment instruments.

Adding these categories together, Australians made around **768 cashless payments per person in 2024** — equivalent to more than two transactions per inhabitant every day.

That is around one-third above the BIS average of 579 cashless payments per person across advanced economies.

Australia's payment structure is also heavily card-based. Australians made **576.9 card and e-money payments per person** during 2024, representing about **75 per cent of all cashless transactions**.

Among the selected advanced economies shown below, only Korea and Singapore recorded more total cashless transactions per person. But the composition varies considerably.

Singapore is even more card-intensive, with card and e-money transactions accounting for 87 per cent of cashless payments. Korea combines very high card use with substantially more credit transfers than Australia.

Germany sits at the other extreme. It records only about 436 cashless payments per person, with direct debits representing 43 per cent of transactions and cards just 36 per cent.

The Australian figures illustrate how mature the shift towards digital payments has already become. The policy question is increasingly not how to persuade Australians to adopt cashless payments, but how to ensure that the increasingly important digital payments system remains competitive, resilient and inexpensive to use.

That does not mean cash has become irrelevant. The BIS separately notes that cash withdrawals are declining internationally while cash in circulation has broadly stabilised. Digital payments may dominate everyday transactions, but cash continues to perform an important access and contingency role.

*Source: Bank for International Settlements, CPMI Red Book statistics, 2024.*

Cashless payments per person — 2024 

| Country        | Cashlesstotal | Card /e-money | Cardshare |
| -------------- | ------------- | ------------- | --------- |
| Korea          | \~860         | 572.1         | 66.5%     |
| Singapore      | \~820         | 715.8         | 87.2%     |
| Australia      | \~768         | 576.9         | 75.1%     |
| Sweden         | \~685         | 387.6         | 56.6%     |
| United Kingdom | \~680         | 490.0         | 72.0%     |
| United States  | \~644         | 505.2         | 78.4%     |
| Belgium        | \~557         | 333.6         | 59.9%     |
| Canada         | \~495         | 418.1         | 84.5%     |
| France         | \~490         | 314.4         | 64.2%     |
| Germany        | \~436         | 157.3         | 36.1%     |

Payments per inhabitant. Cashless total is approximately calculated from BIS instrument-level data. Card share is card and e-money payments as a percentage of total cashless payments. Source: Bank for International Settlements, CPMI Red Book statistics, 2024\.