Cash retail payments halved last year as ecommerce sales soared

Cashless payment

Cash accounted for just 15% of all transactions in 2021, the latest figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) have revealed.

The pandemic, lockdown store closures and the subsequent advice to use contactless payments drove the decline in cash use, which halved from 30% in 2020, the BRC’s annual Payments Survey showed.

As many as 82% of transactions were made on credit or debit cards – up from 67% in 2020 – with debit cards accounting for more than four in five exchanges and credit and charge cards making up the rest.

 

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