Cautious shoppers 'turn to cash'

Worried shoppers used more cash last year in an attempt to better control their spending, according to the >British Retail Consortium (BRC).

The organisation's latest figures show that, across 17,000 shops surveyed, cash was used for 60% of transactions – up from 54% in the previous year.

"Reports of the death of cash are premature," said the BRC's director-general Stephen Robertson. "Hard-up customers are increasingly reluctant to spend money they haven't actually got in their hands."

The BRC has long campaigned for a reduction in the charges that are levied on retailers by credit and debit card providers. It has accused card providers of "pushing cashless payment methods as a way of further boosting their own revenue."

However, a spokesperson for UK payments association APACS told More Than Business News that they did not recognise the picture painted by the BRC, and that the use of cash was decreasing year on year.

"They're wrong to say that cash is making a comeback", he said.