Britons racked up five 5.4 percent more spending on their
plastic cards for the first three months of 2009, compared to the
same period last year, according to APACS, the UK payments
association.
Almost threee quarters of all plastic card purchases were made
using debit cards, the use of which increased four percent for the
current quarter. Credit card expenditure fell, however, by three
percent.
APACS reported that the ratio of credit card repayments remained
the same from 2008 at 97 percent.
In the first quarter of 2009, the number of cheques cleared fell
by 10.6 percent, and the total values fell by 9.4 percent.
The Faster Payments Service, launched in May 2008, processed
60.1 million payments to a value of 20.6 billion in the first
quarter of 2009. Since launch, a total of 142.9 million payments
have been processed, reaching a total value of 53.5 billion.
APACS said that it would make an announcement in the coming
weeks concerning a name change for the organisation that it says
will better reflect its current focus and role.
Faster payments take off.