New figures show one million contactless transactions are made in Ireland every week.

Visa says contactless growth is accelerating the shift from cash to electronic payments.

The contactless payment limit has increased from €15 to €30 since October last year.

While it says eCommerce continues to soar with 17% growth, as Irish consumers spend €6.5bn online per year.

As a result, eCommerce accounts for 21% of spending on cards.

The total number of transactions on cards increased by approximately 16% over the course of the year, to 584 million transactions.

Philip Konopik, Visa Europe's Ireland country manager, said: "The pace of change is now accelerating as evidenced by the growth of contactless payments and online shopping in Ireland".

"The cashless payment journey has only just begun and our focus now is to engage and partner with businesses of all sizes to build propositions that will serve their customers," he added.