Payments in Europe : 2006-2010

I've taken the data from the ECB database to compile numbers for the levels of payments for all 27 EU countries for the period 2006-2010. Here are the results.

These numbers, which are "Payments and Settlement System Statistics" essentially cover credit transfers, direct debits, credit card payments, e-money payments and cheques. They don't include the large value payments made by major operators which typically go through systems such as Target2, Euro 1, and LCH.Clearnet.

I suspect that the numbers are actually fairly close to the numbers that would be generated by the "real economy" and which would be pretty resistent to any temptation to move transactions elsewhere in the event of an FTT being introduced.  The numbers peaked in 2007 at nearly €311 trillion, but climbed back a bit between 2009 and 2010.