Debit Eats Check and Cash Share at the POS
Debit cards are quickly and surely displacing checks and cash at the POS. A new survey, comparing 2001 and 2003, found that check use in the under $100 purchase category has declined by more than 50% and that cash use has dropped by approximately 15%. The “MasterCard International Attitude and Usage Study,” released yesterday, shows that users of ATM/debit cards report making debit payments for nearly a third of all their purchases under $20, a 61% gain over 2001. In the $20 to $50 category, debit payments account for more than half of all purchases, a 31% increase since 2001. In the same category the preference for checks and cash declined by 50% and 18%, respectively, during the same period. In the $50 to $100 category, debit payments capture 52% of all purchases, compared with 47% in 2001, as check use declined from 25% to 12%, and the use of cash remained unchanged. Credit cards continue to rule the over $100 category, capturing 46% of all purchases while debit remains unchanged at 36%. The MasterCard study was conducted in December in 26 geographically dispersed markets in the U.S. and included 750 respondents.