Card payments more than double in 10 years

The number of purchases made using debit and credit cards has more than doubled in the past 10 years, reveals The UK Cards Association reveals.

Debit and credit cards were used to make 16.4 billion purchases in 2016, up 146 percent from 6.7 billion in 2006. That’s 518 card payments made every second last year by cardholders both in the UK and travelling overseas.

Over the past decade the growth in the number of card transactions has outstripped the rise in the amount spent, as consumers increasingly prefer using cards instead of cash for lower value payments. Last year the average value of a card transaction fell to 43.47 pounds, its lowest level in 15 years.

By the end of 2016, four in 10 (39 percent) card transactions were either online or made using a contactless card, compared to a quarter (24 percent) the previous year.

Graham Peacop, chief executive of The UK Cards Association, said: “Card payments play a central role in our economy, with spending equivalent to a third of the UK’s GDP. As consumers continue to make the switch from cash to contactless and with the rise of the app-economy, we forecast that the number of card payments will grow substantially over the next decade too.”

A total of 709 billion pounds was spent by UK debit and credit card holders both domestically and overseas last year. Debit cards represented 75 percent of this total, amounting to 530 billion pounds, while payment cards were used for three-quarters (77 percent) of all retail spending in the UK last year.

In the next decade, the increasing use of contactless and mobile payments, particularly by younger people, will be a major source of growth for debit card payments, The UK Cards Association states. With the volume of debit card purchases forecast to grow by 57 percent to 18.2 billion in 2026, while credit card transactions are expected to increase to 3.7 billion by 2026.