The Digital Economy - Milestones Report, June 2018

The ninth milestones report entitled The Digital Economy reveals the shift to a digital economy in Australia is accelerating.

The report reveals that card payments are more popular than ever, with consumers making over 8.3 billion card payments in 2017, equating to almost 23 million transactions each day. Almost 7 in 10 of these card payments were made with a debit card, and debit card payments grew 15.3% to 5.6 billion in 2017, up 87% since 2012.

The growing consumer preference for digital payments is reflected in the rapid decline in cheque use and ATM withdrawals, which together accounted for fewer than two million transactions a day in 2017. The report shows that in 2017 there was a 19.7% decline in cheques written, down to 89.7 million and a 5.9% decline in ATM withdrawals, down to 610.1 million.