UK market – monthly contactless spending has passed the £2 billion mark

Despite the largest fall in the UK consumer confidence in 26 years, consumer spending continued to grow.  This was evident in card spending, which rose to a monthly record of £53.9 billion, up by 0.9% on June. The number of card purchases also increased, amounting to 1.2 billion, up by 0.8% in a month, new figures from The UK Cards Association show.

Spending online amounted to £12.6 billion, representing 23% of total card spending, while the number of ecommerce purchases reached 156 million, accounting for 13% of the total number of card payments.

Contactless payments totalled £2.1 billion in July as the number of contactless transaction grew by almost 10 per cent in the month to reach 240 million. 19 per cent of all card payments were made using contactless technology in July,

The milestone comes four months after contactless spending topped £1.5 billion in March. In the first six months of 2016, contactless payments totalled £9.27 billion.

Hotels saw the largest increase in overall card spending between June and July, up 25 per cent to £2.1 billion, as the lower value of the pound likely encouraged a greater number of domestic and international travellers. Meanwhile, the value of card spending on foreign currency and traveller’s cheques registered a significant decrease between June and July, falling by 14 per cent to £807 million. This follows on from an increase of 27 per cent to £935 million between May and June.

Richard Koch, head of policy at The UK Cards Association, said: “Consumers’ adoption of contactless continues apace, with the number of contactless payments jumping by a tenth in just one month. At over £2 billion, contactless spending in July was more than three times higher than the same period last year.”

Spending by sector:

. Retail sector spending increased by £185 million to £25.1 billion in July, while service sector spending rose by £286 million to £28.8 billion.

. The debit and credit card share of total retail sales was 77.5 per cent in July.

Source: The UK Cards Association