“Society could obtain gains if it proceeds to the substitution of costlier instruments with more instruments that are more efficient in terms of costs,” the bank says in the study ‘Social costs of retail payment instruments in Portugal’, carried out in 2013 on the basis of 2009 data, but only released on Thursday.
The study assesses two scenarios that could bring savings, estimating savings of €132 million if “all” cheques were replaced by debit cards and bank transfers.
Lesser savings, of the order of €30 million, would be achieved if instead 10 percent of cash payments were substituted by debit card payments, the study states.
In 2013 the costs to society of using retail payment instruments totalled €2.694 billion, or 1.61 percent of Portugal’s gross domestic product that year. Cash transactions accounted for €1.679 billion of that cost, around 1 percent of GDP or 62 percent of the total cost.
These costs were borne “in almost identical parts” by the banks, retailers and consumers, according to the study, with the banking sector bearing most of the costs of all payment instruments, with the exception of cash, in which 45 percent of the cost was borne by consumers and 40 percent by retailers.
Debit cards were found to be more efficient than cash for payments at points of sale, at 50 cents per transaction against 53 cents for cash. The least efficient instruments, according to the study, were cheques and credit cards, which cost society €2.45 and €2.20 per payment respectively.
For remote payments, direct debits were the most efficient at 27 cents, followed by bank transfers, at 70 cents.