Euro-area card terminals grew 24.6 % last year. Card payments grew 6.6 %. That gap says more about how people pay now than any rate card does.
The Payment Economics is a free monthly study of what is changing in payments and what it means for the people who operate them. Each issue takes one dataset or one shift, a fraud pattern, a new payment method, a scheme rule, a regulation, a change in customer behaviour, and reads it objectively: what happened, why, and what an operator should take from it. Sources are public and cited. No vendor, no sponsor, no product placement.
Who reads it
People who run payments in payment-heavy industries: heads of payments, CFOs, operations and fraud leads at merchants, marketplaces, travel, gaming and subscription businesses, and their counterparts at PSPs, acquirers and issuers who see the same shifts from the other side.
How an issue is built
The signal: what the data or the change shows, with its source and its limits. The reading: what it means for an operator, in plain terms. The takeaways: numbered, ready to put in front of a team. Short on time? Read the takeaways.
Issue 001 — What the latest ECB data changes for 2027 payment budgets
Terminals 20.7 M → 25.7 M in a year (+24.6 %), card payments +6.6 %. Card payment growth by count 11.3 % → 9.6 % → 7.9 % over three periods while the average ticket fell about 3 %. Six takeaways for 2027 close the issue. Read it here: https://www.thepaymenteconomics.com/p/what-the-latest-ecb-data-changes
Who writes it, and who could
Payments practitioners who own these questions in their day jobs. The Payment Economics is open to contributors: if you run payments, fraud or finance at an operator and have a dataset, a pattern or a reading worth sharing, write to contribute@thepaymenteconomics.com. Co-written pieces carry your name, or stay anonymous if you prefer.
The benchmark
Alongside the issues we collect anonymous payment figures by vertical, cost, fraud and payment-method mix, and publish the aggregate in December. Contributors see it first. To take part, write to contribute@thepaymenteconomics.com with your vertical and average ticket.
Reply if you disagree with a reading. The best replies become the next issue’s questions.