Over half of US consumers now use automatic or online bill payment services, according to research conducted by the American Bankers Association (ABA) and Boston-based Dove Consulting.
The 2005/2006 study conducted among 3008 US consumers found that 52% use automatic payment to pay at least one bill per month, and 39% of consumers use online bill payment services, especially for paying multiple bills. Cheques now account for less than half of consumers' monthly bill payments - only 49% - down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003.
Jane Yao, ABA's managing director of benchmarking and survey research, says: "Consumer use of electronic payments for in-store purchases has increased steadily for years and much of the 'easy' migration has already occurred. This year's survey results show that electronic bill pay is quickly catching up."
The research also found that cash and cheques now account for only 45% of consumers' monthly payments - both in-store and via the Internet - down from 57% in 2001, and 49% in 2003.
ABA says the move to electronic payments for in-store purchases continues to be driven by the popularity of debit cards, which has grown at the expense of cheques. Six years ago, debit represented 21% of in-store transactions, while today 33% of in-store purchases are made with debit cards.
But the research found that the biggest change is in the area of gift cards, which currently account for four per cent of all in-store purchases, up from two percent in 2003. Consumers' use of gift/prepaid cards for at least one purchase per month in stores increased three-fold from 12% in 2003, to 32% in 2005. Around 12% of consumers plan to use gift/prepaid cards more often over the next two years.