Payment Methods in Italy: Cards, PostePay & Bancomat (2026)

Italians still use a lot of cash in shops, even though most say they prefer to pay without it. In the ECB's 2024 SPACE survey, cash was used for 61% of point-of-sale payments in Italy by number, against 52% across the euro area. Cards accounted for 32%. Yet 61% of Italian respondents said they would rather pay by card or another cashless method in a shop, and only 20% preferred cash.

Across all consumer spending, digital payments have now overtaken cash. Politecnico di Milano's Osservatorio Innovative Payments reports that electronic payments settled 45% of consumer spending in Italy in 2025, cash 38%, and bank transfers and direct debits 17%. Digital payments reached €518 billion in 2025, up 7% on 2024. Online, Netcomm's NetRetail 2026 research found that digital wallets were the most used way to pay (33.9%), followed by credit cards (28.6%).

How people pay in Italy

Popular offline payment methods in Italy

• Cash: 61% of point-of-sale payments by number and 49% by value in the ECB's 2024 survey.

• Bancomat debit cards: Bancomat says its circuit is used on more than 2.5 million POS terminals in Italy.

• Contactless: nearly nine in ten card payments in shops were contactless in 2024, according to the Osservatorio.

• Credit and prepaid cards: Visa and Mastercard cards, including prepaid cards such as PostePay.

• Phone and watch payments: Apple Pay and Google Pay both work in Italy, and the Osservatorio estimates 14 million Italians paid with a smartphone or wearable in the past year.

• Payment apps: Satispay and Bancomat Pay, which let people pay in shops from their phone.

List of payment methods in Italy

Bancomat debit cards

Bancomat is Italy's domestic debit card circuit. It started as a cash machine network in 1983, and its PagoBancomat payment circuit followed in 1995. A Bancomat debit card is linked to a current account, and the same card can also carry an international circuit's brand so it works abroad. Bancomat says its circuit is used on more than 2.5 million POS terminals and 45,000 cash machines in Italy, and calls it the most widespread payment circuit in the country. In 2026, SumUp, myPOS and Dojo each announced deals to accept the Bancomat circuit on their terminals.

Cash

Cash is still the most common way to pay in Italian shops by number of payments. In the ECB's 2024 SPACE survey, it made up 61% of point-of-sale payments in Italy and 49% of their value, both above the euro area average. Cash was also used for 44% of payments between people. Its share of consumer spending is shrinking, though: the Osservatorio puts it at 38% in 2025, down from 41% in 2024.

Credit cards

Credit cards were the second most used way to pay online in Netcomm's 2026 research, at 28.6%, and their share is growing. Nexi, for example, offers its Classic credit card on either Visa or Mastercard, and customers can ask for it at their bank. On that card, the month's spending is charged on the 15th of the following month. American Express also issues its own cards in Italy. A Bank of Italy paper from September 2026 notes that credit and prepaid cards have long been central to Italian e-commerce, while debit cards only recently became widely enabled for online payments.

PostePay and other prepaid cards

Prepaid cards are a common way to pay online in Italy. In Netcomm's NetRetail 2025 research, prepaid cards accounted for 23.6% of online payments. Poste Italiane had 22.7 million PostePay prepaid cards at the end of 2025, of which 10.8 million were PostePay Evolution. PostePay Evolution is a reloadable prepaid Mastercard with its own IBAN, so it can receive transfers, salary and pension payments. PostePay Standard is a reloadable prepaid Visa card that Poste describes as perfect for buying online.

PayPal

The ECB groups PayPal with other wallets and payment apps as e-payment solutions. Together these made up 28% of online payments in Italy by number in the ECB's 2024 survey. Netcomm's 2026 research found digital wallets were the most used way to pay online, at 33.9%, but it does not split that figure by brand. Its 2025 research found that over 83% of online sellers offer several payment options, with growing use of credit cards, PayPal and methods such as Klarna. Italian residents aged 18 or over with a PayPal account can also apply to split purchases of €20 to €3,000 into three interest-free instalments with Paga in 3 rate, subject to PayPal's approval.

Apple Pay and Google Pay

Both wallets work in Italy. Apple lists Italy as an Apple Pay country, with issuers including Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit, Nexi and Satispay, and Google lists Italy for Google Wallet and tap to pay. PostePay Evolution cards can be added to Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. The Osservatorio estimates that 14 million Italians paid with a smartphone or wearable in the past year, up from almost 10 million in 2024. It puts what it calls innovative payments, which include smartphone and wearable payments, at €84.9 billion in 2025, up 45%.

Satispay

Satispay is a mobile payment app. Users link it to their bank account with an IBAN and set a weekly or monthly budget, which is topped up from that account by SEPA direct debit. They can then pay in shops and online, and send money to friends. Satispay's website says it has more than 6.5 million active users in Italy and more than 450,000 affiliated shops. The app also lets users split everyday purchases into three interest-free instalments.

Bancomat Pay

Bancomat Pay is Bancomat's mobile payment service, launched in 2019. It links a current account to the user's phone number, so people can send money to contacts, pay pagoPA notices and pay in shops and online without a physical card. In a shop the customer scans a QR code on the POS, and online they enter their phone number at checkout. It is available in the Bancomat app and is already active in the apps of Intesa Sanpaolo, isybank and UniCredit, and BNL announced access from its own app in May 2026. In April 2026, Bancomat, EPI and SIBS MB WAY completed a cross-border test between their schemes, with person-to-person payments planned for 2026 and online and in-store payments for 2027.

Bank transfers (bonifico) and MyBank

Bank transfers and direct debits settled 17% of Italian consumer spending in 2025, according to the Osservatorio. Online they are less common: in Netcomm's 2025 research, 2% of shoppers paid by bank transfer, though for much higher amounts than average. Since 9 October 2025, euro area payment providers must let customers send instant transfers at no more than the price of a standard transfer, and must offer a free check of the payee. MyBank, controlled by EBA CLEARING, lets shoppers pick their bank and approve a pre-filled transfer, with immediate confirmation of payment, and it has been on Italy's pagoPA public payments platform since 2014. It is still active, but most of its volume is business-to-business: about €10 billion in 2024, against €252 million from consumer payments.

Buy now, pay later: Scalapay, Klarna and PayPal

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is still limited in Italy but growing fast. The Osservatorio puts BNPL spending at €9.9 billion in 2025, up 45% on 2024, with online BNPL up 50%. Milan-based Scalapay offers pay in 3 without interest, plus pay in 4 and longer plans. Klarna offers pay in 3 instalments and pay after 30 days, and PayPal offers Paga in 3 rate. A Bank of Italy paper published in September 2026 found that 4% of Italian households used BNPL in 2022, with use concentrated among younger, more digitally savvy users.

Amazon Pay

Amazon Pay lets shoppers pay on other websites with the card and address details already saved in their Amazon account. It is offered to Italian shoppers and merchants through Amazon Pay's Italian site.

Cash on delivery (contrassegno)

Cash on delivery, or contrassegno, means paying in cash when the order arrives. It is now a small part of Italian online shopping. In Netcomm's 2025 research it made up only 1.2% of online payments, and the 2026 edition says it keeps falling towards marginal levels.

Accepting payments from customers in Italy

Shuttle Links Checkout gives you a branded payment page that you can send by email, SMS or chat. It works with any compatible payment provider. Talk to us.

Accepting payments in Italy as a platform

If you run a software platform with merchants in Italy, your merchants may already have a payment provider. Shuttle is a payment layer. You integrate once, and each merchant connects a compatible gateway. Shuttle supports 40+ payment providers, including Adyen, Stripe and Worldpay Access. Merchants keep their own provider agreements and rates.

See how Shuttle works for platforms or book a discovery call.