NIB has released a report from their Chief Economist saying that "Ireland could make savings of €1 billion annually by switching to electronic payment systems."
More at [broken link removed] and [broken link removed].
Seemingly the average Irish person takes out more cash in a month than the Danes do in a year!
National Irish Bank’s report makes the following recommendations for payment reform:-
* Target a 95% reduction in cheque usage and reduce cash usage to below the European average by 2013.
* Announce an `E-Day’ for October 2012 to achieve this change by, and establish a ‘Payments Transition Board’ to oversee it. It is more efficient to have a transformation away from cheques in a relatively short space of time and this would leave over two years to explain to consumers the changes that are going to take place.
* Reducing Cash:
o Taxation should be switched away from debit cards to encourage more people to use them;
* Reducing Cheques:
o State agencies should stop issuing or accepting cheques by E-Day.;
o The Government should increase the stamp duty on cheques to reflect their full social cost;
o Vulnerable people and groups, notably the elderly, should be exempted from these measures in so far as is possible.
More at [broken link removed] and [broken link removed].
Seemingly the average Irish person takes out more cash in a month than the Danes do in a year!