The statistic comes from the European Central Bank's study on Cash Use by Household in the Euro Area, published in November 2017.
The report presents estimations of the number and value of cash transactions in all 19 euro area countries in 2016, based on survey result as well as figures on main payments by demographic.
According to the findings from the European Central Bank's report, cash was used for 85% of point-of-sale payments in Austria in terms of number of transactions (ECB, 2017).
"The use of cash and cards differs according to country, place of purchase, transaction value and consumers’ demographic characteristics. In terms of number of transactions, cash was most used in the southern euro area countries, as well as in Germany, Austria and Slovenia, where 80% or more of POS transactions were conducted with cash." (p. 4)
"Comparing the use of cash per country, it can be concluded that cash was used most in southern euro area countries, as well as in Germany, Austria and Slovenia (resulting in country shares of 80% or above for all POS transactions). The market share of cash was lower in Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Ireland, ranging from 71% to 79%. Belgium, Luxembourg and France follow with a cash share ranging between 63% and 68%. The Netherlands, Estonia and Finland had the lowest shares, ranging between 45% and 54% of all payments at POS." (p. 19)
