In 2024, the number of payments made using cards issued by German payment service providers rose by 11 percent on the year. This resulted in around 13 billion transactions last year. Card payments accounted for 40 percent of all payments made by non-banks. Direct debits continued to be used frequently, rising by 3 percent to 9.9 billion transactions. Despite this growth, their market share fell from 34 percent to 31 percent. Credit transfers grew by four percent to 7.6 billion transactions, while their share of all payments remained the same at 24 percent. This is shown by the Bundesbank’s payment statistics.

SEPA instant credit transfers rose by 37 percent on the year, reaching 337 million transactions. Their share of all credit transfers initiated electronically thus rose by one percentage point to 4.9 percent.

Looking at the value of the transactions, credit transfers, at €64 trillion, continued to account for 90 percent of all payments. Direct debits, at €5.9 trillion, kept their share of 8 percent.

The number of ATMs in Germany is continuing to decline. In 2024, the number of ATMs with a cash withdrawal function operated by German payment service providers fell by three percent to around 49,750 units, compared with around 51,300 in the previous year. ATMs with a credit transfer function also recorded a decline of three percent, falling from around 23,200 to around 22,500.

Detailed figures of the Statistics on Payments and Securities Trading, Clearing and Settlement can be found on the Bundesbank’s website: