The latest SME Monitor states that Irish consumers spent around €6 billion on overseas holidays in 2019.
With all non-essential travel restricted throughout 2020, the report highlights that consumers have accumulated billions in savings that could be spent on holidays in Ireland.
Brian Hayes, Chief Executive of BPFI said the introduction of state backed spending incentives could unlock billions of euro for the Irish economy and aid the recovery of service-based small and medium sized businesses. The severity of the challenges faced by the accommodation and food services sector is evident in recent figures which show that while the average fall in turnover across all SME sectors between March and October 2020 was 25%, SMEs in hotels and restaurants experienced an average decline of 65% in their turnover during the same period, he said.
Over €25 million in contactless payments per day in February thejournal.ie - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thejournal.ie Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Irish consumers lost over €12 million through debit and credit card scams in the first half of last year, according to new figures published by the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI).
The data shows that online card fraud was up 21% in the first six months of 2020, reflecting the boost in online shopping during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, in-store card fraud dropped by 52% during this period.
A total of 143,000 fraudulent card transactions were detected in between January and May.
Brian Hayes, Chief Executive of the BPFI said that 72% of these transactions involved the theft of card details. Fraudsters do this mainly by using fake text messages, email scams or fake websites to get a hold of a consumer s card details and go on to use those details to make fraudulent payments mostly online, he explained.
Irish consumers lost over €12 million to online credit and debit card scams in six months last year | JOE is the voice of Irish people at home and abroad joe.ie - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from joe.ie Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.