For most of us, the land ‘Down Under’ is a distant place. It punches above its weight in the global imagination – think the Sydney Opera House and surfers, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, crocodiles and kangaroos. But, like Aussie Rules Football, it can be hard to make sense of (unless you’ve actually been there). As part of our Spotlight series on regional payment preferences, here are a few fast facts to get you started, with a focus on digital and electronic payments:
Australia is the world’s sixth-largest country, in terms of land area, but has only 27 million residents.1 To put that in perspective, Italy is about 4% as large as Australia, with more than twice as many people. About 73% of Australians live in the major cities, which are located on or close to the sea (with the exception of its capital, Canberra).2 What that means is concentrated pockets of urbanisation in a few places along its tens of thousands of kilometres of coastline, and a vast, sparsely populated hinterland (also known as ‘the Outback’!) everywhere else.