In 2010 more and more people in the UK avoided using their credit cards and turned to alternative payment methods such as cash and debit cards.
According to the British Retail Consortium, an organization that accounts for 90 percent of the stores in the UK has provided information that shows credit card transactions have dropped 12.9% as many shoppers try to avoid debt.
Surprisingly, the amount of cash transactions also fell, but the average amount spent per transaction increased by 13%. Debit cards look to be the new preferred method of payment. The use of debit cards has gone up by a whopping 15.8%.
The BRC pointed to the high amount of bank charges that credit cards are associated with for the decrease in usage. In fact, credit cards have the highest cost out of all the payments processed by the BRC.
To show just how big the contrast in cost actually is, retailers reported that they paid 1.7p for each cash transaction compared to the outrageously high 37.1p per credit card payment processing. Debit cards came in at just 9.2p per transaction.
Putting things even further into perspective, credit cards only accounted for 10% of the transactions though they account for nearly half of total processing costs.
Another interesting fact that may come as a bit of a surprise was the average time it took for a customer to pay using each method. Coming in as the quickest way was physical money, taking an average of 27.2 seconds to complete. Card payments took an average of 29.4 seconds.
With credit card transactions on the decline, issuers are becoming more and more competitive when it comes to credit card offers. Now is a great time to shop around for a new credit card.
To view all of the unbeatable credit card offers at CreditCardsProfessor.com, click here.
As always, stay tuned for more of the latest credit card news, advice and important updates!
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