There has been an increase in the use of contactless payment technology during 2020 in the UK, fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to UK Finance’s 2021 Payment Markets Report.
As a result, contactless payments accounted for 27% of total UK payments in 2020, with 83% of people in the UK now using contactless, with no age group or region falling below 75% usage. In a year when the total number of payments made fell by 11% to 35.5 billion, contactless payments increased by 12%, reaching 9.6 billion.
According to the report, it was consumer spending, making up 86% of total payments, which caused the first reduction in the number of payments made in the UK for six years. While the number of consumer payments reduced by 13% to 30.7 billion, business and government payments increased by 14% to 4.8 billion.
UK Finance said there are 135 million contactless cards in the UK, with 88% of debit cards and 81% of credit cards using the technology.
Alongside the increased use of contactless payment technology, mobile payments and internet banking were also increasingly used, while cash declined as a method of payment. Mobile phone and smartwatch payments saw increased use, with 32% of the adult population registered to use mobile payments by the end of 2020, compared to just under 25% in 2019.
By 2020, the number of cash payments made in the UK fell by 35%, accounting for 17% of all payments in the UK, the second most frequently used payment method behind debit cards, which includes contactless payments. There were 1.2 million consumers who mainly used cash for their day-to-day spending during 2020.
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