Got Brass in Pocket? Brits Turning Away from Plastic

Though the United States seems headed toward a cashless society, in the United Kingdom more people use cash at retail than they did six months ago, a survey finds.

Surveying 17,000 retailers, the British Retail Consortium found 60 percent of transactions were completed in cash, up from 54 percent in November. By dollar volume, debit cards lead cash in both the United States and Britain.

The BRC, which represents shop owners, has objected to card companies’ campaigns to promote the use of plastic cards, which increase merchants’ transaction costs. Currently, U.K. retailers pay 4 cents on average to process a $40 cash transaction compared to 16 cents for a debit card and 68 cents for a credit card.

BRC director general Stephen Robertson says the increase in cash spending showed that people are “trying to control their finances and (not) spend money they did not have.”

Well-publicized fraud cases have also made consumers skittish, Emily Starbuck Gerson says in the Taking Charge blog at CreditCards.com. After thieves installed skimming devices on card readers at gas stations and ATMs in the village of Letchworth, west of Cambridge, many residents returned to paying cash — obtained from flesh-and-blood bank tellers, not machines.