Yet more reports reach the in-box disclosing changes in consumer spending behaviour.
Visa’s PR department makes the most dramatic claim kicking off a press release with the claim that the UK is "becoming an increasingly "cash-last" society."
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Visa goes on to make some optimistic forecasts: it says that one in four Brits expect to use their mobile phone to make payments on a daily basis by 2020, growing from the one in 12 who do so already today.
The report adds that the average shopper is expected to spend £27 on mobile each week by 2020, £10 more than what is spent today.
Furthermore, nearly a quarter of respondents predicted that they would spend more than £50 a week using their mobile device by 2020.
And the forecasts may well be proved to be accurate; indeed many will analysts will argue that Visa’s figures possibly err on the side of caution.
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By GlobalDataMeantime, back in the real world and away from the daily grind of gullible PRs pitching stories about the death of cash (In Sweden, a fair pitcj, but we are talking UK PRs here) cash is far from dead with 18 billion cash transactions taking place in 2014, the equivalent of almost 50 million payments a day.
Consumers used notes and coins for more than half (52%) of all their transactions in 2014.
The next most popular payment method is the debit card, which had a 26% share of all consumer payments made last year.
The number of ATMs across the UK continues to rise up from 67,963 at the end of 2013 to 69,382 at the end of 2014.
In 2014, ATMs were used 2.8 billion times to withdraw £189bn in the UK.
Cards use continues to rise with over 35 million card payments made every day in 2014 – up 12.1%.
Total UK-issued debit, credit and charge card spending both domestically and overseas rose by 8.2% in 2014 to reach a record £600.3bn.
The average debit card holder has two cards (1.97). Young people lead the way, with 94 per cent of 16-24 year olds having a debit card.
On average, each debit card was used to make 106 purchases in 2014, spending just over £4,500 per card, up 10 per cent on 2013. Half of debit card holders say they use their card several times a week, with eight in ten using theirs at least once a month.
Just over 31 million people hold a credit card, about 60% of the UK adult population. I appreciate that the PRs and vendors who try to kid and con that we are all about to ditch cash and cards and migrate spending to the mobile will not appreciate the UK Cards Association forecasts, but tough.
The UKCA estimate that the number of card payments made in the UK will by 66% per cent in the next ten years from 11.5 billion in 2014 to 19.2 million by 2024.
Cash is far from dead in the UK and the cards sector remains gratifyingly healthy too.
