Irish consumers tapped their cards more than 1.5 billion times in 2024, topping €26.7 billion worth of transactions. Every time they do, a till machine and its software initiates a data flow that secures the parties’ money through the banking system. This is big business and, much like other multinational-dominated IT industries, a lot of it happens in Ireland. The figures from the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland back up what many consumers probably feel anecdotally – that card and digital payments are the consensus choice. About half of all card payments made in retail and restaurants were contactless and…

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