The Huffington Post reported the results of a survey conducted by Moneris, the Toronto based payment processing firm, that fewer consumers are using cash to pay for in-person transactions:
An online survey of 1,000 people conducted by processing payments firm Moneris earlier this year found that 77 per cent of respondents preferred to pay for purchases by debit or credit card, and 65 per cent said they rarely buy anything with cash anymore.
Certainly this is a trend in the U.S. market, however cash is retreating at a slower rate and represents a larger percentage of total transactions.
One reason cited for the Canadian’s embrace of non-cash forms of payment is the pervasiveness of NFC at the point of sale where consumers can simply tap their contactless card or enabled phone to quickly and easily complete a transaction. The Moneris data showed a 162% increase year over year in the increase in the number of contactless transactions.
The New York Times reported similar trends away from cash in Sweden where banks are beginning to significantly reduce the amount of cash that they have on hand and are investing much less in ATMS.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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