girocard accounts for 42% of German retail card payments

The girocard payment system accounts for 42 percent of all card transactions in the German retail sector, according to data released by S-Payment GmbH on May 22, 2024, based on the EHI Retail Institute's "Payment Systems in Retail 2024" study.

The study revealed that card payments increased in 2023, while cash's share of total sales decreased by 2.0 percentage points to 35.5 percent. Germany's overall retail sales grew to 485 billion euros from 465 billion euros due to inflation. Cash transactions amounted to 172 billion euros, whereas card payments rose to nearly 300 billion euros, representing 61.8 percent of total sales.

girocard accounted for 42.4 percent of payments, significantly outperforming traditional credit cards (8.6 percent) and new debit variants (4.1 percent). Visa Debit and Debit Mastercard showed the highest growth, but their service fees are considerable, leading to limited acceptance in many smaller businesses.

According to the EHI report, customers are increasingly frequenting physical stores, and the number of transactions saw a substantial rise. In 2023, there were 19.55 billion transactions, a notable increase from the previous year and nearing pre-pandemic levels.