Payments Data

A description of the Australian payments system and a range of statistics including some overseas comparisons can be found in:

BIS payments and financial market infrastructures statistics (The Red Book)
Payment, clearing and settlement systems in EMEAP Economies 48KB

The Reserve Bank has published monthly and quarterly statistics on Australian payment systems from its Retail Payments Statistics (RPS) collection since 2002, with some series dating back as far as 1985. These statistics cover the direct entry system, the ATM system, cheque payments, the New Payments Platform, as well as credit and charge, debit and prepaid card systems. The data are provided by financial institutions, payment service providers and some payment system operators. More information on the RPS collection and data can be found in a March 2019 Bulletin article and reporting forms and explanatory notes. The Reserve Bank also publishes statistics on high-value payments from its real-time gross settlement system.

Relevant data on the Australian payments system can be found using the links below. Both seasonally adjusted estimates and the original data are available for some series. A summary of the monthly Retail Payments Statistics releases can be found here.

C1: Credit and Charge Cards – Seasonally Adjusted Series
C1.1: Credit and Charge Cards – Original Series – Aggregate Data
C1.2: Credit and Charge Cards – Original Series – Personal and Commercial Cards
C2: Debit Cards – Seasonally Adjusted Series
C2.1: Debit Cards – Original Series
C2.2: Prepaid Cards – Original Series
C3: Average Merchant Fees for Debit, Credit and Charge Cards
C4: ATMs – Seasonally Adjusted Series
C4.1: ATMs – Original Series
C5: Cheques – Seasonally Adjusted Series
C5.1: Cheques – Original Series
C6: Direct Entry and NPP – Seasonally Adjusted Series
C6.1: Direct Entry and NPP – Original Series
C7: Real-time Gross Settlement Statistics

Australian Payments Network
Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Statistics

Discontinued payments statistical tables (last updated November 2024):

C1: Credit and Charge Card Statistics
C1.1: Additional Credit Card Statistics
C1.3: Credit and Charge Cards – Market Shares of Card Schemes
C2: Market Shares of Credit and Charge Card Schemes
C3: Average Merchant Fees for Debit, Credit and Charge Cards
C4: ATM Cash Withdrawals
C5: Debit Card Statistics
C6: Cheques, Direct Entry and NPP Payments
C8: Points of Access to the Australian Payments System