Debit card transactions would overtake cash in the UK by the end of 2018, three years earlier than expected, according to the latest report by Payments UK.
The report, titled UK Payment Markets 2017, revealed that the country is going cashless faster because of the increasing popularity of contactless cards.
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In 2016, there were approximately 2.9 billion contactless payments in the UK, 2.7 times higher compared to the last fiscal year.
The association figures show that debit cards have been used 11.6 billion times in 2016, 14% more than the previous year, with just over one in five of these transactions made using contactless. Cash was used for 15.4 billion payments previous year.
By 2018, 13.4 billion debit card payments are predicted, of which 4.6 billion are expected to be contactless. Cash is expected to be used for 13.3 billion payments in 2018.
Payments UK chief economist Adrian Buckle said: “The popularity of contactless means that we expect debit cards to overtake cash as the UK’s most frequently used payment method in late 2018, three years earlier than we previously thought.
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By GlobalData“People will always want to choose the payment methods that best suit them, and cash will remain a frequently-used payment method for the foreseeable future.”
“In ten years’ time, we will still be using cash for one in five payments in the UK, even as mobile payments and other innovations provide ever greater choice about how to pay,” added Buckle.
