There are now over 150 million contactless cards in issue across the UK, accounting for 93% of all cards being used, new figures published by UK Finance have shown.

The banking trade body’s latest card spending update, covering the month of March, showed that there were 1.59 billion contactless card transactions during the month, 5.9% more than in the same month in 2023.

UK Finance’s data covered the monthly value and volume of transactions across debit and credit cards.

Within the total of contactless card transactions, the number of contactless debit card transactions (1.36 billion) was 5.3% higher than March 2023, while the number of contactless credit card transactions (225 million) was 9.3% up on last year.

This means contactless payments accounted for 76% of all debit card transactions and 63% of all credit card transactions made during March 2024.

In terms of value, contactless transactions reached £25.1bn in March, which was worth a 10.2% increase on last year, while total spending across all cards – including contactless, online, and chip and pin – was £75.8bn.

Head of data management at UK Finance, Janine Randolph, said: “Contactless cards continue to be a very popular way of consumer spending, whether that’s using a physical card or through a mobile phone.

“There are over 150 million contactless cards now in issue and across these people spent over £25bn on them in March alone.”

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