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The latest data shows that consumers in both countries continued their shift away from cash in 2024, with card payments dominating transactions.
In the UK, the total value of debit and credit card transactions topped £1trn, while in the Netherlands, 80 percent of all checkout payments were made with a debit card, according to new data from UK Finance and the Dutch Payments Association.
According to the UK banking association, UK-issued debit and credit cards were used for 31.4bn transactions in 2024, up from 30.2bn the previous year.
However, overall spending remained steady, reflecting a trend towards more frequent, lower-value transactions.
At the end of 2024, there were 163.4m UK-issued cards in circulation. Spending was split between debit and credit card transactions, with the former totalling £797bn and the latter £249bn.
According to UK Finance, contactless payments played a significant role in this shift to card payments, with 18.9bn contactless transactions recorded, a 3.4 percent increase compared with 2023.
The average contactless transaction was £15.86, which the association suggested was a modest rise in value.
“Debit and credit cards continue to be the preferred method of spending for UK consumers,” commented Janine Randolph, head of data management at UK Finance.
“We are using our cards more frequently, particularly making use of contactless transactions, which is being driven by increased card acceptance and also mobile contactless payment.”
Netherlands nears cashless economy
The Dutch payments landscape is also evolving rapidly, with cash usage dropping to just 19 percent of all point-of-sale (POS) transactions in 2024.
Debit cards dominated the market last year, with their share of checkout payments rising to 80 percent, while credit card usage remained minimal at less than 1 percent
Young consumers, those 12–18 years old, increased their debit payment share from 78 percent in 2023 to 84 percent in 2024. Older consumers, those between 65 and 74 years old, also embraced digital payments, with debit transactions rising from 75 percent to 78 percent of their payments.
Mobile payments via smartphones and smartwatches continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace than in previous years, while chip-and-PIN transactions declined significantly, with the trade association pointing out that they make up just 6 percent of POS payments, compared with 24 percent five years ago.
Is cashlessness inevitable?
The UK and Netherlands are moving at a similar pace towards cashlessness, although Dutch consumers have pulled ahead.
Both countries are among the key payments pioneers in Europe, alongside others such as Sweden, and have jumped ahead of counterparts such as Germany and Austria that still rely heavily on cash payments.
Cashlessness is not inevitable yet, but both the UK and the Netherlands are already digital payment landscapes.
Although the benefits of convenience, security and efficiency are apparent, the risks should not be ignored, and governments like that of Sweden seem to be aware of this.
Digital payments certainly offer speed and convenience, but the decline of cash carries several risks.
One major concern is financial exclusion. Elderly individuals, low-income households and those without bank accounts still rely on cash for everyday transactions — even as merchants in more metropolitan areas of the UK such as London embrace digital-only POS.
People who are uncomfortable with technology or lack access to digital banking may struggle to participate in an increasingly cashless society, so governments, including those of the UK and the Netherlands, have begun implementing legislation to secure the future of cash access.
An equally pressing risk is increased vulnerability to digital failures, and a series of bank outages in recent months in the UK has sparked criticism from members of parliament (MPs).
Outages in the networks of banks or payment providers such as Visa and Mastercard, which are still rare, could leave consumers unable to pay for essential goods.
Cybersecurity threats, such as hacking and fraud, also pose a serious risk, potentially disrupting digital transactions on a large scale.
A major system failure could effectively leave many people without a backup payment method, and in a time when geopolitical uncertainty has left countries more exposed, payments could easily become a point of vulnerability to be exploited.
