Jump in card transactions made in May

Based on UK Finance’s latest card spending figures, the value of these went up by 2.2% year-on-year to £76bn. Of this spending, contactless payments accounted for 63% of credit card and 76% of all debit card transactions.  

In total, 1.6 billion contactless card transactions were made– 7.5% more than in May 2022 – with the value of these transactions being 11.5% higher than last year, going up from £22bn to £24.5bn. In addition to this, both the number of contactless credit card and debit card transactions went up year-on-year by 10.2% and 7.1% respectively.  

Turning to those transactions made by UK cardholders, 2.23 billion transactions were made on debit cards – 5.6% more than in May 2022 – with a total spend of £67.3bn, two percent higher year-on-year. As for credit card transactions, this increased by 5.6% to 379.1 million with total spending six percent higher year-on-year to £21.2bn.

Meanwhile, the outstanding balances on credit card accounts have grown by 8.8% over the 12 months to May and 49.7% of outstanding balances incurred interest compared to 51.2% 12 months ago.