Brits increasingly turned to debit cards to make purchases on the High Street in 2010 according to latest figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).  Analysis of eight billion transactions in Britain last year revealed that credit card usage fell sharply whilst cash remained the main method of paying for goods and services.

Credit card usage falls by 12.9 per cent in 2010

The BRC’s annual Cost of Payment Collection Survey includes results from nearly eight billion transactions in store and online, accounting for 60 per cent of the UK’s annual retail sales.  The report found that transactions involving credit cards fell by 12.9 per cent in 2010 as Brits increasingly turned to debit cards.

The BBC reports that ‘the number of transactions involving cash also fell, although the average amount spent rose by 13 per cent to £12.93.’  Debit card transactions rose by 15.8 per cent compared to 2009.

Stephen Robertson, Director General of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Hard-pressed customers are switching to cash and debit cards for the reassurance that they can’t spend what they haven’t got.

“At the same time, use of credit cards has dropped sharply. Cash remains king – used for more than half of all retail payments. ”

Credit card charges account for nearly half of processing costs

The BRC report also found that the average charge for processing a credit card payment was 37.1p compared to just 9.2p for a debit card.  The BBC reports that ‘credit cards were used in just 10 per cent of all transaction, but accounted to more than 44 per cent of processing costs.’

Analysis of the UK’s High Street transactions also found that cash was the quickest way to pay for goods and services.  A cash transaction took an average of 27.2 seconds to process, compared to 39.4 seconds for a card payment.