The Central Bank is launching a major national campaign to persuade consumers and businesses to stop using cash and cheques in favour of online transactions.
Dame Street mandarins calculate that it would save the Irish economy €1bn a year to increase the use of electronic payments with debit cards, smartphones and online transfers and is tendering for ad agencies to power a major marketing drive with a budget of up to €1m.
The State itself is setting an example – it is one of the heaviest users of cheques, but from September government departments and local authorities will no longer use them.
A group of representatives from businesses, consumer groups, banks and government departments have been driving a plan to persuade the public and companies to embrace cashless transactions. The National Payments plan aims to double the number of debit-card and other electronic payments and transfers over the next year and to slash cash and cheque use