On average, a German went to a retail store 215 times in 2022 to shop. Considering the entire population, this adds up to 17.9 billion transactions, according to a report. The crisis year 2021 is thus slowly falling behind, and the economy is recovering further. It mainly deals with one question: Which payment systems dominated in retail last year?
Head-to-Head Race: Card Payment vs. Cash
The Corona years are seen as the initiator for the increase in card payments. In fact, as early as 2019 – a good year before the Corona pandemic – there was a stronger use of non-cash payment methods. However, the fact that payment behavior has not significantly shifted back towards cash even after the crisis years is shown in the current EHI study "Payment Systems in Retail 2023". The result of the survey of around 409 companies with over 100,000 establishments: Card payment continues to occupy first place, with cash following in second place.
The trends, however, are moving in opposite directions. Card payment expands its share by 0.9 percentage points and accounts for about 60 percent measured by revenue. A large share of this is the Girocard. International debit brands continue to increase. With an annual revenue of about 465 billion euros in retail, this accounts for over 270 billion euros. The share of cash, on the other hand, continues to decline, amounting to 37.5 percent in 2022. The remaining single-digit percentages are accounted for by vouchers as well as invoice and finance purchases.
Mobile Payment Transactions
The share of all card-supported payment transactions via mobile devices has developed from 3 to 5.4 percent. Customers are therefore increasingly reaching for their smartphones or smartwatches at the checkout and paying for purchases with the card stored there. Pioneers here are Apple Pay, Google Pay, as well as the respective apps of savings banks and cooperative banks.
This trend highlights the need for payments to be made faster and for merchants and customers to save time. First positive changes have occurred for physical card payments. The card only needs to be inserted into the reader for 23.5 percent of transactions. For the rest, a simple contact is sufficient. PIN entry is also waived for about 70 percent of payment transactions.
POS Software – Relief for Retail
As second, cash is still far from being written off. The EHI study shows that the cash-back option is used by many customers. Therefore, nearly 90 percent of the surveyed businesses from 35 sectors offer cash withdrawals – mostly in connection with payment via Girocard. As part of this service, about 12 percent of cash income went back to customers through the cash register last year.
Therefore, it is important for cash processing to become faster, less complex, and more time-saving for retail. The digitization of cash processes in the back office and efficient management at the point of sale offer effective work relief here. An established industry solution: as a platform for cash management. In addition, our solution enables the automation of cash handling. Thus, time can be saved during the checkout process. It represents a quickly implementable middleware that optimally supports front office cash recycler management in all processes related to payment, change, or inventory management – regardless of the manufacturer of the cash recycler.
And that's not all: With our software solutions, we cover the entire spectrum of cash processes – from digitized manual safebag processes to optimized checkout processes to monitoring cash recyclers in automated money processing.
Nearly 8 billion transactions show that the POS is the central hub for retail. Optimized checkout processes and efficient cash handling are thus absolute must-haves.