Noncash Payment Growth Highlighted in Sixth Federal Reserve Payments Study

Fintech Digital Commerce Federal Issues Federal Reserve Electronic Fund Transfer ACH Payments Credit Cards

On June 30, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve issued its sixth payments study entitled The Federal Reserve Payments Study 2016: Recent Developments in Consumer and Business Payment Choices. The study includes data on business and consumer noncash payments made in the United States in 2015. Among other things, the study details the differences between business and consumer payments in 2015 compared to those from 2000, general-purpose payment card use in 2015, and increases in use of alternative payment methods.

According to the report, the most popular noncash payment types among consumers were, in descending order: non-prepaid debit cards, general-purpose credit cards, checks, and finally, ACH debit transfers. For businesses, however, ACH credit transfers were the most popular, then checks, general-purpose credit cards, and non-prepaid debit cards. Consumers wrote fewer than half the number of checks in 2015 than they did in 2000 but almost doubled the number of noncash payments that they made. Businesses also cut check-writing by more than half but differed from consumers by more than doubling the number of ACH transfers that they initiated during the same period.

General-purpose or “network-branded” cards accounted for more than 65 percent of noncash payments in 2015. The data showed that 60 percent of these card accounts carried revolving debt, while 40 percent of accounts were paid in full each month.

Information on fraudulent payments also was collected and should be available in the third quarter of this year.