The Christmas period saw payments skyrocket as SIA records 92m card payments using debit, credit and prepaid cards, issued in Italy the week before Christmas.
SIA processed all the card payments it analysed. It also noted that from Tuesday 18th December to Monday 24th December 2018 there was an increase of 26% from the same period in 2017.
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The peak in card payments was recorded on Saturday 22nd December with 15.6 million transactions. Furthermore, 13.6 million of those transactions were made in physical stores and around 2 million online.
In the period from 1st to 24th December 2018, SIA processed overall 278 million transactions with cards. This is up almost 25% compared to the 223 million in the same period of 2017.
In particular, around 20% of the total of payments with card related to purchases on e-commerce sites adding up to a total of 55 million transactions. This is 7.8% up from the same period in 2017. The increase of payments in traditional stores was more significant, increasing by 29.7%.
SIA digital platform
SIA Group provides its services in over 50 countries. It also operates through its subsidiaries in Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary and South Africa. The company also has branches in Belgium and the Netherlands, and representation offices in the UK and Poland.
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By GlobalDataSIA’s digital platform supports financial organisations with payment services such as clearing, settlement and treasury.
Card payments have been accelerating globally. During November 2018 SIA also announced an increase of 30% in card payments on Black Friday. 13.4 million transactions in Italy were made by debit, credit and prepaid cards on Friday 23 November 2018 compared to 10.4 million on the previous Friday, 35.6 million over the entire weekend.
More specifically, transactions for online purchases were 3.6 million – equaling 27.1% of the total – while payments at bricks and mortar stores reached 9.8 million.
Alternative ways to pay continue to enter the market. Consumers now have a wide range of choices across the payments sector.
