UK set to make 120 million payments a day

An all-time record 44 billion payments will be made in 2024, up 3.4 billion over 10 years, equating to 120 million payments per day. The increase will be driven by rises in card, internet and mobile banking payments, according to new research published by
Payments UK, the trade association for the payments industry.

The overall number of one-off payments processed as Faster Payments was 771 million in 2014 and is projected to reach 1.94 billion by 2024. Direct Debits are forecast to see steady growth over the next decade and reach 4.2 billion payments in 2024. It is forecast that CHAPS volumes will grow at an average annual rate of 3% over the next 10 years, to reach just over 50 million payments in 2024.

Number of annual consumer payments made per adult in UK

Focusing on the payment methods used by consumers, forecasts suggest the most significant increase in the next decade is expected to come from debit cards. This will largely be at the expense of cash as more consumers use debit cards to make contactless payments. It is expected that in 2016 the total volume of all non-cash payments made by consumers will exceed the volume of consumer cash payments for the first time. Looking at consumer and business payments combined, non-cash payments overtook cash payments in July last year.

Debit card volume growth will also come from increasing contactless card and
e-commerce usage. In 2014 debit card payments represented 26% of consumer payment volumes. By 2024 this is projected to rise to 42% of consumer payment volumes – equivalent to an average of 282 debit card payments per person.

Cards (both debit and credit) accounted for 51% of the volume of non-cash payments in 2014, but by 2024 they are projected to account for 60% of non-cash transactions. Within this, the volume of debit card purchases is expected to grow from 9.2 billion in 2014 to 16.0 billion in 2024. In terms of percentage growth in payment volumes, the strongest growth over the next ten years will be experienced by one-off automated credits processed through the Faster Payments Service, which is forecast to nearly double by 2024.

Cash machines will remain the main method by which consumers acquire cash over the next 10 years. 2.5 billion cash machine withdrawals are forecast in 2024, with the value withdrawn predicted to rise from £189 billion in 2014, to a peak of £196 billion in 2019, before falling slightly to £192 billion in 2024.

Cheque payments are expected to decline from 2.8% of all non-cash transactions in 2014 to 0.8% in 2024, with 135 million consumer cheque payments and 118 million business cheque payments forecast.

In 2014 cheques only accounted for 1.1% of the volume of consumer payments and are forecast to decline to 0.4% by 2024. Cash on the other hand accounts for a much larger share of consumer payment volumes at 53% in 2014; however this will also decline to 33% by 2024.

Over the next ten years the number of cash payments is set to decline. There are forecast to be 12.6 billion consumer cash payments in 2024. This represents a decline of 30% compared to the 18.1 billion consumer cash payments in 2014. This would see cash represent around 33% of the total volume of consumer payments, down from 53% of consumer payments in 2014. The total value of cash spent by consumers is forecast to fall in nominal terms, from £253 billion in 2014 to £238 billion in 2024.

The new analysis is published in UK Payment Markets 2015, which draws on recent and emerging developments to make forecasts for the future usage of all forms of payments by businesses, consumers and government.

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