The shift to digital remittances in Europe continues to accelerate

A switch from cash to digital person-to-person (P2P) cross-border payments is accelerating in Europe as consumers increasingly choose mobile apps to make secure, fast and convenient transfers to family and friends, according to a new Visa study.

The Money Travels: 2023 Digital Remittances Adoption research report analysed how people in different nations choose to send and receive international remittances as well as top reasons for using remittances. It found that in some European countries, adoption of digital P2P payment methods is outpacing digital adoption in the United States.

The study, which focused on data from France and Poland within Europe, found that in these two nations between 62% and 67% of people who sent payments via international P2P remittances used digital devices. This compares to 61% of people who sent remittances from the United States where physical payment methods such as cash, cheques and money orders are still relatively widely used.

The Visa study follows recent analysis of P2P payment trends by the European Central Bank (ECB) which revealed that across the eurozone, digital P2P payments more than trebled from 2019 to 2022¹. The global pandemic accelerated digital adoption, resulting in use of mobile apps for P2P payments rising from 3% to 10% of total P2P transactions by number, and from 4% to 11% by value.

In Poland, the Visa study found that more than half (56%) of people who had only used physical methods for foreign P2P transfers were likely to use digital methods in future. Digital finance is expanding rapidly in Poland which primarily receives rather than sends remittances. It has more than 21 million active digital banking users, of whom 16.5 million use mobile apps².

In France, which sends more remittances than it receives, 40% of people who had not previously used digital remittance methods, said they were likely to do so in future.

In the two European nations covered, the top reasons for sending money abroad were funding unexpected needs, paying for holidays and special occasions.

The study identified the key benefits of digital remittances as making it easier, quicker and more secure to send money abroad. It also found that the majority of people sending remittances regard app-based digital payments as the most secure method of transferring funds.