Card spending continues to soar

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Card spending continues to soar

Thu 12th Oct 2006

Card spending in the UK continues to increase, reaching an all-time high, new research has revealed.

A cumulative amount of £470 billion was spent by Britons on credit, debit and store cards in 2005, up from the previous year's total of £437 billion, reports independent market analyst Datamonitor.

According to the findings of the research, card sales accounted for 60.8 per cent of the total store transactions in the UK last year. This figure shows a card spending increase of just over 13 per cent from 47.1 per cent of total sales in 2001.

Kieran Hines, senior cards and payments analyst at Datamonitor, commented: "Growth in card use on the high street relative to total sales growth in these sectors demonstrates the ongoing trend towards greater card use among consumers.

"Clearly a growing number of consumers are using payment cards to make a high proportion of their day-to-day transactions."

Following a growth of card transactions of 51 per cent since 2001, Datamonitor predicts that collective card spending in the UK will reach £639 billion in 2010.

Moneysupermarket, the price comparison website, shows the Barclaycard simplicity credit card to have the lowest typical APR at 6.80 per cent.

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