Britons increase use of credit and debit cards

 A recent release of the figures from the World Payments Report show that British shops handled 15bn credit and debit card transactions during 2008, a 5pc increase on 2007, making Britain the fourth largest non-cash market in the world.

A further report from CapGemini, Royal Bank of Scotland and the European Financial Management & Marketing Association stated that the UK growth rate is beginning to flatten out and the use of Debit and Credit cards had reached its peak. This has been an area of resilience for the banks and even though they had endured reduced business levels in the first quarter transaction banking accounted for 5pc to 20pc of group revenues.

World wide non-cash transactions grew by 8.6pc to 250bn – mainly driven by the US and Europe, which account for 61pc of all international activity, though developing markets offer "opportunities for banks to generate new revenues".