Brits are turning away from credit to debit cards during the recession, according to payments association Apacs.
In the first quarter total spending on plastic cards was up 5.4% at £94.2 billion. The number of purchases made was up 6.5% to 1.9 billion.
Debit cards accounted for 74.5% of all plastic card purchases in 2009, seeing a four per cent rise in spending compared to Q1 2008. In contrast, spending on credit cards fell three per cent.
The popularity of cheques continued to decline, with the number cleared falling by 10.6%, and the total value down by 9.4%
Meanwhile, there were 696 million withdrawals from cash machine during the three months, with £45.1 billion taken out.
The Faster Payments Service, launched in May 2008, continues to gather momentum, with 60.1 million payments processed to a value of £20.6 billion in the first quarter of 2009.
Since launch, a total of 142.9 million payments have been processed, reaching a total value of £53.5 billion.