Retail payment services 2019

Abstract

Most of us shop and pay more often than before. We make more frequent use of electronic means of payment and less frequent use of cash. This trend has been ongoing for many years. Norway is one of the countries with the most card payments per inhabitant per year. In the past three to four years, mobile phones have largely supplanted cash for person-to-person (P2P) payments. Surveys show that three out of four P2P payments are made on a mobile phone, primarily using the Vipps payment app. Most of these payments are instant payments made directly from account to account, where the payee has access to the funds seconds after the payment has been sent. Online shopping has grown very fast in recent years, and payments for online shopping now account for close to one out of seven card payments. Shopping on Norwegian websites is showing the most growth. Surveys show that fewer than one out of ten payments at physical points of sale or P2P are now made in cash. Statistics show that the cash infrastructure has been used less and that parts of it have been dismantled. The number of ATMs is continuing to fall, and each remaining ATM is used for fewer withdrawals through the year. Cash-back at point of sale has also declined considerably in recent years.