In the period between March and October 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, the number of online transactions increased by about 34% and their value increased by about 38%, while card payments increased by five percentage  points on the year, the Croatian National Bank (HNB) reported on Tuesday.

“Even though citizens prefer buying in person and in cash as the most represented method of payment for services and commodities in retail, the pandemic as well as the earthquake in Zagreb and its surroundings have left their mark on consumer habits with regard to accelerating the growth of online shopping and share of non-cash payments compared to cash. In the period from March to October 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, the number of online transactions increased by about 34% and the value of those transactions by nearly 38%,” HNB reported in an article on its new HNBlog, written by Tomislav Misic.

Misic’s analysis shows that the share of card payments in total fiscal receipts in all of 2020 amounted to 21% or five percentage points more than in the comparable period in 2019 when it was 16%.

In previous years the average growth of that share was about two percentage points. The value of online transactions with card payments in the total value of fiscal receipts increased from 44.% to 46% in 2020, with Misic noting that the data confirms that citizens are beginning to use card payments more often even for smaller amounts.

The pandemic has impacted habits with card payments and non-contact payments and in the period from March to October 2020 they increased by about 76% year on year while their value increased by about 161%. The number of contact transactions in 2020 fell by about 29% y-o-y and their value decreased by about 9%, the analysis shows.