Year-on-year increases in debit and credit card spending

In total, 2.1 billion debit card transactions were made in the month – a 6.3% year-on-year increase – with a total spend of £70.7bn, 7.5% higher than during March 2022. Additionally, there were 343.8 million credit card transactions made in March 2023, 4.9% more than in March 2022, with a total spend of £20bn, 8.4% higher than in March 2022.  

Alongside this, 2.1 billion debit and credit card transactions took place in the UK in March, 4.3% more than in March 2022, with a total spend of £77.8bn – 5.8% more than in March 2022.  

Of this, contactless payments accounted for 61% of all credit card and 75% of all debit card transactions. In total, 1.5 billion contactless transactions took place in the month – 7.5% more than the 1.4 billion in March 2022 – with the total value of contactless transaction was £22.8bn, a 14.4% increase on the £19.9bn seen during the same month last year.  

Additionally, the number of contactless credit card transactions was 11.2% higher than in March 2022, while there was a 6.9% year-on-year increase in contactless debit card transactions.