29/04/2009 - Cash favoured over card payments
Retailers said that just over £116 billion of payments made last year in shops and online were by debit cards, which accounted for 43% of all retail spending.
While this was a huge increase on the £88.9 billion recorded in 2005, credit card spending has only seen a slight increase, from £60.2 billion to £60.7 billion over the same period.
However, the most popular payment method overall is cash, which accounted for total transactions of £267.1 billion during 2008.
This included money spent in shops, online, on travel and entertainment as well as financial transactions such as savings or debt repayments.
Meanwhile, there was a continuing decline in payments by cheque, which totalled £180.6 billion and was a 7% fall on the previous year.
The data, gathered by payments body Apacs, also revealed that automated payments accounted for the largest proportion of total consumer spending at £333.1 billion in 2008, 6.9% more than during the previous year.
Copyright © Press Association 2009
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