Struggling Brits ‘stick with debit cards’

As British consumers continue to struggle with debt management problems they are tending to stick to spending on their debit cards, according to the latest figures.

Data compiled by the UK’s payment association Apacs has shown that around 62 per cent of all the spending on plastic last year was done on debit cards.

Indeed, over the past ten years, the scale of annual spending on debit cards has risen by as much as 390 per cent to reach almost £221 billion for the whole of 2007.

Meanwhile, as debt management problems worsen for many thousands of consumers, increases in credit card spending so far this year were kept at 1.2 per cent – below the rate of inflation.

“Surprisingly despite lots of speculation, all the early indications from our figures so far for this year show that there has been no sudden spike in credit card spending,” said Sandra Quinn, director of communications at Apacs.

The payments association reported earlier this year that UK consumers spent around £11.3 billion on credit cards over the course of December 2007.

By Dan Mather