Contactless Cards Drive Surge in Growth for Debit and Credit Card Transactions in UK

Credit and debit card payments UK reached its highest annual growth rate since June 2008, driven largely by contactless cards, a report released yesterday by financial services trade group UK Finance found.

There were just under 1.4 billion card payments in the UK in June 2017, good enough for a monthly record and a 12 percent annual growth rate since over last year, the report said. This growth rate — the highest since the global financial crisis — was largely driven by a robust 143 percent increase in the number of contactless purchases over last year. The report found that contactless payments accounted for 34 percent of all card transactions in the UK, a 16 point jump over June 2016 and a modest 1 percent increase over May 2017.

“Contactless payments accounted for a third of transactions in June with consumers continuing to use their cards for lower value purchases,” Richard Koch, Head of Cards at UK Finance, said, “While spending recorded a relatively modest monthly growth, the number of transactions rose at a faster rate with some 46 million card purchases made every day.”

Total card spending reached £57.1 billion, a 7 percent increase over 2016 and totaling 77 percent of total retail sales in June. Online commerce also experienced a better than average growth rate at 20 percent.

Although credit and debit card volume was up among virtually all measures, the report found the average transaction value on all card payments fell from £43.53 in June 2016 to £41.36 in June 2017, suggesting UK consumers are becoming more accustomed to using card for smaller-value purchases.

The full report can be found here.