British tills, phones and electronic networks will process a massive 44 billion transactions in 2024, according to trade group Payments UK.
The association has tipped UK payments as a whole to rise by 3.4 billion over the next decade, with card, internet and mobile-banking payments driving the increase.
Volume growth in debit card usage, says the group, will stem from increased activity in the contactless and e-commerce arenas.
While debit card payments represented 26% of consumer payment volumes in 2014, they are projected to account for 42% in 2024 – equivalent to an average of 282 debit card payments per person.
The figures have emerged from the organisation’s latest industry analysis, UK Payment Markets 2015.
The report notes: “It is expected that, in 2016, the total volume of all non-cash payments made by consumers will exceed the volume of consumer cash payments for the first time. Looking at consumer and business payments combined, non-cash payments overtook cash payments in July last year.”
It adds: “Cards (both debit and credit) accounted for 51% of the volume of non-cash payments in 2014, but by 2024 they are projected to account for 60% of non-cash transactions. Within this, the volume of debit card purchases is expected to grow from 9.2 billion in 2014 to 16 billion in 2024.
“In terms of percentage growth in payment volumes, the strongest growth over the next 10 years will be experienced by one-off automated credits processed through the Faster Payments Service, which is forecast to nearly double by 2024.”
Cash machines will continue to be the primary method that consumers will use for acquiring hard cash over the next 10 years, with 2024 likely to see around 2.5 billion withdrawals.
The overall value withdrawn is predicted to rise from £189bn last year to a 2019 peak of £196bn, before falling slightly to £192bn in 2024.
Cheque payments, meanwhile, are expected to decline from 2.8% of all non-cash transactions in 2014 to 0.8% in 2024 – with 135 million consumer cheque payments and 118 million business cheque payments predicted to occur.
While cash accounted for a much larger share of last year’s consumer payment volumes, at 53%, that has been tipped to plummet to 33% by 2024.
Over the next 10 years, the number of cash payments is set to decline, with 12.6 billion consumer cash payments forecast for 2024 – a decline of 30% compared with the 18.1 billion consumer cash payments that took place in 2014.
That would place cash at around 33% of the total volume of consumer payments – down from 53% of consumer payments in 2014. The total value of cash spent by consumers is forecast to fall in nominal terms over the projected period, from £253bn last year to £238bn in 2024.