POS terminals, e-commerce drive up card usage in Australia

Value added benefits like rewards points and discounts have made cards attractive.

Australia’s credit and charge card market is forecasted to grow by 7.1% in 2024 thanks to rising consumer spending, and a burgeoning e-commerce landscape.

The market’s value grew by 8.8% in 2023 and will further grow to $289b (A$434.9b) in 2024.

One factor that helped drive value up was the strong point-of-sales (POS) terminalisation. 

“Australia boasts a well-developed payment infrastructure, with strong POS terminal uptake with 37,389 POS terminals per one million individuals in 2023 — higher than its peers China, Hong Kong, and India,” noted Ravi Sharma, lead banking and payments analyst at GlobalData.

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“Australians frequently use credit and charge cards, with the average frequency of card payments per person at 203.8 in 2023, up from 148.4 during pre-COVID-19 pandemic period in 2019. The country’s strong payment infrastructure, high consumer preference for card payments, and merchant acceptance have supported this growth,” Sharma said.

Rising e-commerce payments also contributed to its growth, with credit and charge cards making up 29.2% of the payments in this space in 2023, according to GlobalData’s 2023 Financial Services Consumer Survey.

Value-added benefits such as reward points, discounts, installment payment facilities, and cashback are driving usage in this space, GlobalData added.