CONSUMERS are turning to their debit and credit cards more often to make small purchases amid the growth of online shopping and contactless payments, the cards industry's trade body has reported.
The typical value of a purchase made using a debit card was £43.70 in June, 96 pence less than it was 12 months earlier, according to data from the UK Cards Association.
Meanwhile, the average value of a payment made by credit card has fallen by £2.71 year-on-year to £60.13.
The association said the volume of purchases using cards was on the rise. The number of purchases grew 9.2 per cent year-on-year in June, to 993 million in total across the month.
But because cards are increasingly being used for low-value purchases, the overall value of spending on cards has increased more slowly than the volume.
Richard Koch, head of policy at the UK Cards Association, said: "The use of contactless cards for lower, everyday sums is partly behind this trend."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article