As the European Union (EU)’s third largest economy and a world top ten economic force, Italy has experienced rapid modernisation of its payment systems in recent years, in parallel with consolidation in its previously fragmented banking sector.
And while cash use declines in line with other major economies, cards continue to play a major – and remarkably dynamic – role in Italian payments even as the country adopts new digital payment methods such as account-to-account (A2A) and digital wallets.
High value and remarkable growth
Italy’s card business: an EU leader
For a major, modern European economy, Italians are big spenders on their cards.
Last year, Italians spent some €4,159 on their payment cards on a per-capita basis[1] – a figure that’s grown 8.8% since 2019.
In some categories, such as debit cards, growth has been closer to the kind of speed one expects to see in emerging markets.
Debit card transactions are up by 20.3% per year over the last five years, reaching a total of 6.7 billion transactions in 2024.
“In 2024, Italians spent an average of €4,159 on their payment cards, up 8.8% year-on-year since 2019.”
Online, Italians also prefer cards: e-commerce transactions using cards have risen by more than a third (35.1%) every year since 2019, with the total value of Italy’s digital economy reaching €48 billion in 2023 and 1.4 billion card-based e-commerce payments last year.
Recent trends such as contactless NFC payments have not escaped Italy, either, with more than 70% of all face-to-face card transactions now contactless and nine in ten POS terminals contactless-enabled.
Local innovators following global trends
If Italian banks and consumers continue to embrace card payments, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been innovation elsewhere.
Digital wallets continue to gain traction in Italy, with PayPal holding a 40% share in e-commerce transactions. Unlike many other European economies, however, local players such as Satispay are holding their own against the giant US tech brands.
A similar story is seen in the rise of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payments. BNPL is as popular in Italy as it is elsewhere, with growth at more than 15% projected through the end of 2026.
As with digital wallets, local champions are competing for market share with European and global leaders.
Italy is also among the EU’s top players when it comes to instant account-to-account payments, too: Italian banks reported processing 8% of all SEPA SCT Inst payment volumes in 2023, a statistic which puts the country in the company of digital innovators such as Sweden and Finland.
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Worldline supports its client issuers with a comprehensive suite of value-added services, including card activation, full compliance with scheme rules, a rich API catalogue, instalment payments and BNPL.
The company’s deep experience across Europe enables issuers to get products to market rapidly, with pricing that’s easy to understand and leverages the economies of scale available to one of Europe’s largest card services companies.
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[1] All figures in this article, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the Digital & Card Payment Yearbooks 2024-2025 (Italy), available at www.paymentyearbooks.com
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