APACS: Card Payments to Overtake Cash in 2004
APACS has announced that it expects in the UK that the payment volume of card payments will for the first time exceed that of cash payments for 2004 (PDF).
>Plastic is set to overtake cash as Britons’ most popular method of payment, according to The Way We Pay, a new industry report released today. Debit cards are leading a trend which means that in 2004, for the first time, plastic card payments will outstrip cash payments for goods and services.The watershed comes after a year in which the number of plastic cards in use grew by 13 million (nine per cent) to 160.6 million, accounting for £243.9 billion of spending. Debit cards accounted for two-thirds of plastic card transactions (64.9 per cent) and more than half of expenditure on plastic (£130.5 billion).
This year, total plastic card use, if business card usage is included, is expected to top £269 billion, against a predicted £268 billion of cash payments. In 2005, it is expected that personal plastic card usage alone will overtake cash payments.
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