Chip and PIN has been a major payment method in the UK for many years. The first chip + PIN cards appeared in 2003. A deadline encouraging retailers to stop accepting card and signature payments was set for Valentine’s Day 2006. UK customers’ love affair with paying by card has grown stronger ever since.
COVID-19 had an impact on the amount of card payments being made. There was more reliance on cards for payments but less overall spending due to national lockdowns. More than half (52%) of all payments were made by card in 2020. Experts aren’t sure if there will be continued decline in the use of cash, but many assume there will be. Since 2017, cash payments have been dropping by around 15% each year.
Debit cards continued to be the most popular payment method in the UK in 2020, accounting for more than 2.5 times more payments than cash. Almost half of those payments were made by means other than contactless payments online payments, over the phone transactions and other ‘card not present’ payments and chip and PIN). Mobile payments (via Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay) are also growing in popularity.