Shoppers spend record £55 billion on cards

A record £55 billion was spent using cards in October - the highest figure it has ever seen within a single month, The UK Cards Association has said.

Shoppers are increasingly going online and using contactless technology to make purchases as spending passed the £55 billion milestone for the first time, up from the £54.7 billion was spent on cards in December, the organisation said.

There are now 100 million contactless debit and credit cards in circulation, with £2.8 billion spent using contactless in October.

The number of card purchases increased to 1.3 billion transactions, up by 0.9 per cent on September

Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of card spending took place online, having grown by 0.8 per cent to £12.9 billion.

At 160 million, the number of online purchases represented 13 per cent of total card payments.

Richard Koch, head of policy at the UK Cards Association, said: “Cards continue to play a central role in the economy and our wallets.”

Separate figures released by Barclaycard show that half (50 per cent) of Britons now pay with contactless at least once a month.