16 November 2007
Payments association Apacs said yesterday that Britons would rack up most of their Christmas spending (64% of the total) on credit and debit cards.
It also predicted that around 10% of spending in December will be transacted online.
The amount of money spent during the month will increase by 4% over last years' total to hit £53 billion, Apacs added.
Plastic card spending, however, differ between the types of cards: debit card transactions are set to increase 14% over 2006 levels to total £22.4 billion.
By contrast, credit cards seem set to stay fairly static, increasing from £11.4 billion last December to £11.7 billion this year mainly thanks to increased online sales.
Sandra Quinn, Director of Communications at APACS, said: "Whether buying the turkey or stocking fillers, we’re most likely to be using our debit card to pay for them this Christmas, continuing the ongoing trend of pulling out the debit card in preference to our credit cards, cash or cheques.
"The one exception is online where we are much more likely to use our credit cards - which makes sense because of the extra consumer protection they provide."
Apacs's Christmas forecast is markedly more conservative than figures released by uSwitch earlier this week, which predicted £14 billion to be spent on internet shopping this Christmas.
However, the lower prediction from the payments association (£5.6 billion) only covers the month of December, rather than the festive period as a whole.
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