In the UK, cash is becoming more and more popular, particularly among households that are on a limited budget, even though the “overwhelming” majority of money spent still goes towards using debit and credit cards. Additionally, the adoption of other payment options—like Buy-Now-Pay-Later—has increased by almost 100 per cent.
These are the main conclusions drawn from the 2023 British Retail Consortium Payments Survey. Based on data from the previous year, its most recent figures indicate that cash usage increased for the first time in ten years, from 15 per cent of all transactions in 2021 to 19 per cent in 2022.
“A natural return to cash usage following the move to contactless during Covid, as well as a decision by many households to use cash to budget more carefully during the start of the cost-of-living crisis,” the BRC stated.
Due to the increased use of cash, card payments decreased from 83 per cent in 2021 to 76 per cent in 2022; four-fifths of these transactions were made with debit cards.
The percentage of transactions using alternative payment methods increased from 2 per cent to 4.9 per cent over this time. According to the report, methods like BNPL and Open Banking are beginning to pose a threat to card payments.
The report’s analysis of UK retail sales overall for 2022 showed a 4.3 per cent increase to £439.5 billion, although this gain was mostly attributable to rising prices brought on by higher expenses across the supply chain. From 17.2 billion in 2021 (47.2 million per day) to 19.6 billion in 2022 (53.7 million per day), there were more transactions.
