Signals from the Web: What Google trends reveals in payment digitization

Using Google Search Volumes (GSV), I develop the GSV-based Digitization of Payments Index (GSVDPI), a multidimensional metric built via machine and deep learning models, to track the evolution of digital payments. This index allows for quantifying the changes in the use of digital payment instruments (card, contactless, mobile, and others) in France and comparison with other European countries like Germany, Italy, and Spain. Compared with standard payment digitization statistics published by institutions like the European Central Bank (ECB), the GSVDPI offers distinctly valuable and real-time insights. Consequently, the GSVDPI accounts for the complex dynamics and policy expectations of the digitization process, which are typically overlooked by univariate metrics. I contribute to the literature by identifying the economic mechanisms driving digital payment adoption and examining its macroeconomic effects through a cross-country analysis. I show that incorporating the GSVDPI into the explanatory variables of a multivariate cash demand framework significantly enhances model performance, thereby offering deeper insights into future payment trends.