Smartphones are seen more and more as payment tools by US consumers

In 2014, cash (93%), cheques (68%), cards (68%) remained the most used payments methods with select digital offerings close behind, according to the How America Pays in 2015 report issued by Blackhawk Network.prepaid and payments global company, paymentsexchange.ca reports.

Cash and cheques saw the greatest declines in use overall. 87% of consumers think merchant-specific gift cards are convenient to use, even higher than bank-connected debit cards (82%). Gift cards are now mainstream payment methods with almost half of consumers (48%) using them in 2014.

33% of consumers used prepaid debit in 2014, and 30% of consumers used prepaid cards more in 2015 versus 2014. Prepaid debit cards are considered convenient by 78% of US consumers. Shoppers are using a larger variety of payment options with digital and mobile payments serving as supplements to the traditional cash and card-based payments tools.

Cash, cheques and cards are still the most used payment methods with digital offerings close behind. 93% used cash, 68% used debit cards, 68% used cheques, 67% used credit cards, 62% used PayPal, 48% used retailer gift cards, 45% used Visa or MasterCard gift cards, 33% used prepaid debit cards and 14% made mobile payments on smartphones or tablets.

87% of consumers think merchant-specific gift cards are convenient to use, even higher than bank-connected debit cards (82%). Additionally, gift cards are now mainstream payment methods with almost half of consumers (48%) using them in 2014.

Mobile wallets now used by 25% of smartphone owners. 64% users have debit cards in their mobile wallets, 58% have credit cards and 45% have gift cards. Cash, cards considered most convenient payment methods; cheques and Bitcoin least convenient: When asked to select the most convenient payment methods, consumers selected cash (93%), credit cards (92%), PayPal (90%), and retailer-specific gift cards (87%).

The survey was conducted on more than 1,000 US consumers to examine how they pay today, their preferences for traditional and emerging payments tools and how safe they believe different payments tools to be.