Britain moved another step closer to becoming a cashless society last year. According to Payments UK, which represents the major banks, building societies and payment providers, 2015 was the first year that cash was used for less than half of all payments by consumers.
The story made it to the front page of The Guardian. The paper reported that cash usage will be eclipsed by debit cards and contactless payments by 2021. As for 2015, cash made up 45.1 per cent of payments, compared with 64 per cent in 2005, and is expected to fall to just a quarter by 2025.
More than one billion ‘wave and pay’ transactions took place last year. Since the start of 2016, contactless use has gathered pace, particularly on the London Underground network. On the high street, one in six card purchases are now contactless, with Tesco leading the way.
But don’t write off the cheque just yet. More than 500 million cheques were written in 2015, confounding expectations that the payment method is disappearing, according to the BBC.
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