Almost 5 million UK residents chose to lead an almost completely cashless lifestyle in 2018, as debit cards were proven to be the most popular method of payment.
“More and more customers are now opting for the speed and convenience of paying with their contactless cards. This rapid rate of technological change is set to continue over the coming decade,” said chief executive of UK Finance, Stephen Jones.
A total of 39 billion transactions were made in the UK last year by businesses and individuals, the UK Payment Markets report said.
The vast majority of these were by consumers, and most were one-off payments, rather than scheduled payments.
This is driven primarily by the use of contactless payments – which itself was boosted by adoption on public transport systems. Take-up has been increasing across all age groups, particularly among pensioners last year, and regions of the UK.
Cashing out
The volume of payments using cash fell by 16% in 2018 compared with the previous year, down to 11 billion transactions.
Whereas cash accounted for 60% of payments in 2008, this proportion fell to 28% last year. UK Finance predicted this would drop to 9% – fewer than one in 10 transactions – in a decade’s time.
It suggested cash would become “less important than in once was”, but that the UK would not become a cashless society.
Source: BBC News
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