The UK Payments Market report, released once a year, shows that debit cards – included those loaded onto phones – were the predominant way to pay last year.
They accounted for 54% of all payments in made in 2025. Some 39% of payments were contactless.
Cheques had been due to be phased out by 2018, until MPs forced a change of heart by the industry years ago.
Instead, they have withered to just 0.2% of payments made in the UK – with a total of 77 million written last year.
Cash is unlikely to go the same way, according to forecasts by UK Finance.
Notes and coins were used in 3.9 billion, or 8%, of all payments last year. This is expected to halve to 4% of all payments in the UK in 2035, or two billion transactions.
However, some people still had a strong preference for using cash.
“Rather than the UK becoming a cash-free society over the next decade, the UK will transition to an economy where cash is less important than it once was but remains widely valued and still preferred by some,” the report said.
Nearly 50 million people used a cash machines last year.
Nick Quin, from Link, which oversees the UK’s ATM network, said: “Cash withdrawals are falling across every part of the country. More people find it convenient and prefer to pay using contactless cards and digital wallets on smartphones, but millions still rely on cash day in, day out.
“People on lower incomes rely more heavily or entirely on cash to budget, which is why our job is to protect access to cash for as long as people need it.”
