Universal Access to Payments Required

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has created an open access database of data relating to retail payment for 95 countries from September 2019 to June 2022.

BIS has used this data to write a working paper giving insights into what happened as a result of the pandemic and to learn lessons ¹. The data allows an understanding of how retail payment behaviour changed as the waves of COVID cases occurred, as mobility changed and as lockdown measures were introduced.

A key finding was the vital importance of universal access to payments.

Dataset captured

The database consists of five weekly or monthly payment related data sets for 95 countries:

• Cash in circulation data

• Credit card payment data including the ratio of card not present (CNP) and contactless payments

• Work on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) by central banks

• Internet searches on key words such as ‘ATMs near me’, ‘Cash COVID’, ‘CBDCs’ etc.

• Use of digital payment apps; their downloads and daily active user data for the top apps.