200 parish churches in the Archdiocese of Dublin will now be equipped with with “tap-and-donate” card machines.
The installation of card machines in parish churches was previously mooted and subsequently trialled by the archdiocese in 2019, with a spokeswoman for the archdiocese saying that “later this year [2019] we plan to roll out the ability for the majority of parishes to accept card-based payments using a parish payments system. This will cover many transactions such as offerings, pilgrimage payments and will enable parishioners to sign up for recurring contributions”.
The recent increase of card machines in the archdiocese comes after fears over the widespread transmission of the Covid virus and because there are less people carrying physical forms of currency than ever before.
The AIB-powered machines will be featured in selected parishes across Dublin, Laois, Carlow, Wexford, Wicklow and Kildare.