Whither payments now?

This month, UK finance published its UK Markets Summary 2021 and it is and interesting read.  Cash payments continue to decline, assisted by the pandemic which saw a sharp move to contactless and online payments.  While the pandemic was catastrophic for many sectors, it was a shot in the arm for those in the fintech payments sectors.  

So what do the numbers look like?  While there was an overall decline in  debit card transactions, debit cards still accounted for 44% of all payments in the UK.  There were 30.7 billion consumer payments and 4.8 billion business payments.  In 2020, contactless payments accounted for 27% of the total payments - a staggering uptick of over 300% from its 2016 levels of 7%.

Cheques continue on their long and slow demise from 1,050m in 2010 to 185m in 2020.  I feel that is is only a matter of time before the cheque book becomes a quirky reminder of days past.

So, the future is bright if you are in the online payments space but, a word of caution, the more we transact online, the greater the rewards for those with the technological sophistication to break into the systems to deprive us of our hard earned cash!