Non-cash payments in the UK will near the £1.5 trillion mark by 2026 but the death of cash will be a ‘slow process’, new research suggests.

Law firm Paul Hastings forecast that the value of non-cash payments in the UK will reach £1.44 trillion by 2026, a 26 per cent increase on 2016’s figure of £1.14 trillion. The firm also predicted that there will be 19.1 billion contactless transactions per year within a decade.

The Future of Payments research, conducted in association with the Centre for Economics and Business Research and YouGov, also indicated that 68 per cent of all transactions will be non-cash transactions, up from 55 per cent currently.

Additionally, almost three quarters (74 per cent) of businesses will accept alternative payment methods, according to the research – a sizeable leap from 2016’s figure of 41 per cent.

The Future of Payments report said: “As the decline of cash continues, alternatives are rising to take its place. And it is not just cash they are leaving in their wake. Last year cash accounted for less than half of all payments made by consumers, businesses and financial institutions in the UK for the first time. In the first three months of 2016, meanwhile, use of both contactless credit and debit cards overtook cheques.

“These are just a few milestones as we witness ‘the slow death of cash’, and are reflected in trends in the US, where non-cash payments continue to grow relentlessly. But while it’s long been clear that consumers and businesses are walking away from cash, it’s less clear where they’re going.”

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