Contactless payments rise to £380m as Brits favour plastic
Britain's shoppers spent more than £380m via contactless payments in December, showing their rapid adoption of the latest technologies, according to the UK Cards Association.
Overall spending on plastic rose to £49.1bn in the month, with debit cards leading the way.
Debit card spending rose 7.2 per cent on the year to £34.5bn, over a total of 806m transactions.
Meanwhile credit card spending increased 4.4 per cent to £14.6bn over 244m transactions in the month.
Such strong growth comes despite average incomes only rising by 1.7 per cent in the 12 months to November.
As a result, the strong card spending numbers reflect both a further shift from cash and cheques to plastic, and the growing confidence of shoppers who feel less of a need to save more of their income.
The replacement of cash payments with contactless is also illustrated by the fall in the average size of transactions.
The average debit card transaction size fell from £44.22 to £42.88 in the year. Contactless payments are limited to a maximum of £20.