Apacs Tracks Rising Card Use

Plastic cards are being used for almost two-thirds of retail spending in the UK, new figures from Apacs show.

According to the payments association, cards made up 65 per cent of retail spending in Britain across 2007 - a figure boosted by the 11 per cent rise in debit card usage over the same period.

By contrast, cheque use continued its seemingly terminal decline, dropping by 7.5 per cent in value and by 13 per cent in volume in transactions for 2007.

Cheques were also only used for three per cent of total spending across the year - with the remaining 32 per cent made up of cash spends.

Sandra Quinn, Apacs director of communications, said: "We are becoming increasingly reliant on our plastic cards at retailers as they offer us convenience, speed and access to services, such as the cashback facility, which other payment options cannot provide."

She added: "As retailers are increasingly deciding to stop accepting cheques, it is expected that a large proportion of those payments will migrate to debit card payments."

Overall, retail expenditure in the UK for 2007 stood at £261 billion.