Daily Archives: 03/30/2010

54% of U.S. Adults Prefer Cash as Payment

According to market research publisher Packaged Facts in
“Consumer Payment Trends”, currently 54% of U.S. adults cite cash as their preferred form of
payment. Meanwhile, 68% of American adults have a debit card in their wallet and
67% have a credit card; though only 53% of adults may be considered
active credit card users with transactions in the last thirty days.
The report reveals that the falling percentage
of consumers who have used their credit cards in the last twelve months
indicates that more people are keeping their accounts open for emergency
purposes only while opting to use the equally convenient — and still
popular — debit card instead. More than half of American adults still pay bills with checks due to the
security checks offer when sending payments through the mail and because
they don’t expose consumer accounts to the electronic vulnerabilities
that can be exploited by high-tech thieves. Nevertheless, the
time-consuming disadvantages of checks appear to be outweighing the
advantages, especially as Americans turn increasingly to electronic
forms of payment. Online payments are benefiting from the shift toward electronic forms of
payment, and in many ways they are also helping to drive that shift.
Last year, 27% of U.S. adults — 61 million people — paid their bills
online, a testament to both the robustness of online payments and how
quickly Americans have taken to it as a viable payment option.