Interesting stats from the Payments Council

Just received a press release from the UK Payments Council that makes interesting reading. 

The figures show that spending by card, cheque, cash and automated payments over the last six years has changed little, beyond the usual variance to consumers' payment habits, despite the difficult economic conditions.

The latest quarterly figures reveal that:

• The number of plastic card purchases - which includes debit and credit card purchases combined - rose this quarter by 6.9% and the value of purchases rose by 4.3%, compared with Q3 2008.

• Credit card spending by value fell by 0.7% although the number of credit card purchases increased by 2.5%.
• Debit card spending by value rose by 6.9% and 8.5% by volume when compared with Q3 2008.

• Gross credit card lending, which reflects all new spending on credit cards and includes interest, was 7.5% lower than in the 3rd quarter 2008. Reflecting this lower spending, repayments also fell but by 4.7%. Consequently the annualised ratio of repayments to new lending increased to 98.1% compared with 96.4% in Q3 2008.

• Debit cards dominated non-cash spending for the first time. Previously when reviewing all payments not made by cash, Direct Debits and Direct Credits made up the greatest number. However, this quarter debit cards accounted for 40.2% of all non-cash payments, whereas Direct Debits and Direct Credits made up 39.1%, when combined.

• Cheque and credit clearing volumes fell by 13% and values by 19%, between Q3 2008 and Q3 2009.

• The volume and value of Faster Payments rose by 11% and 12% respectively during Q3 2009, when compared to Q2 2009 - demonstrating the ever increasing use of the new service from one quarter to the next. This quarter, 47% of all standing orders and 73% of telephone and online banking payments were made using the Faster Payments Service.

• CHAPS Sterling volumes and values fell, as they were down 6.3% and 12.5% respectively from the corresponding quarter last year.

• The number of cash machine withdrawals rose by 0.5% compared with Q3 2008, whilst the amounts withdrawn fell by 0.7%.

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