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Population
5.4M
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Online population
5.26M
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Currency
EUR
Population - 5.4M
At the start of 2026, 65.1% of Ireland’s population lived in urban centres, whereas 34.9% lived in rural areas.
Internet penetration - 98.9%
There were 5,26 million internet users in Ireland at the start of 2026.
Ireland has one of Europe’s most internationally connected fintech sectors, but its domestic payment market has historically been heavily dependent on cards.
The country combines a large tech industry with an established financial-services sector, making Dublin an important European base for payment companies, neobanks and international fintechs.
In 2025, Irish payment service providers processed 4.96 billion transactions, up 8.8% from 2024, with cards and credit transfers driving most of the increase.
The biggest change entering 2026 is instant payments. Since October 2025, Irish banks and relevant payment providers have been required to let customers send and receive SEPA Instant transfers, moving euros between accounts within ten seconds, 24/7. This addresses a longstanding weakness in Ireland, where account-to-account payments developed more slowly than in several other European markets.
The next challenge is turning instant bank transfers into something people actually use to pay. Ireland remains heavily reliant on cards for everyday payments, while Open Banking payments have struggled to gain traction. The Central Bank’s PAYBAC initiative is working with banks and payment providers to make it easier for consumers to pay merchants directly from their bank accounts, without using a card. Combined with SEPA Instant, this could make account-to-account payments a much more practical option for online and eventually everyday purchases.
On the innovation side, the Central Bank’s 2026 Innovation Sandbox is testing some interesting projects like FacePOS, which combines Pay-by-Account with facial recognition to let customers make instant payments at the point of sale, when on the infrastructure level, Monee is working on technology for cross-border payments and securities settlement between Ireland and the UK.
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Brexit helped establish Ireland as an important EU base for international fintechs, giving them an English-speaking base inside the EU, an established technology and financial-services workforce and, where relevant, the ability to use an Irish authorisation to serve customers across other EU markets. Several years later, the trend is still gaining momentum. In 2026, Monzo launched in Ireland after choosing Dublin for its European headquarters, Block opened a major new Dublin office, and Trading 212 announced Dublin as a new European regulatory and capital-markets hub.
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