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The 2010 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice: Summary Results
In 2010, the number of consumer payments increased nearly 9 percent from 2009 as economic activity began to rebound from the financial crisis and recession. Cash payments by consumers, which had increased sharply in 2009, did not fall back but rather grew another 3 percent in 2010. However, the share of cash payments, the dollar amount of cash withdrawals, and cash holdings by consumers decreased moderately in 2010. Credit card payments by consumers increased 15 percent, reversing more than half the 2009 decline, and the steady trend decline in paper check payments by consumers continued. ...
Report
The 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice
This paper describes key results from the 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC), the fourth in a series of diary surveys that measure payment behavior through the daily recording of U.S. consumers' spending. The DCPC is the only diary survey of U.S. consumer payments available free to the public. In October 2017, consumers paid mostly with cash (30.3 percent of payments), debit cards (26.2 percent), and credit cards (21.0 percent). These instruments accounted for three-quarters of the number of payments, but only about 40 percent of the total value of payments, because they tend to be ...
Report
The 2011 and 2012 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice: Technical Appendix
This document serves as the technical appendix to the 2011 and 2012 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice. The Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) is an annual study designed primarily to study the evolving attitudes to and use of various payment instruments by consumers over the age of 18 in the United States. The main report, which introduces the survey and discusses the principal economic results, can be found here. In this data report, we detail the technical aspects of the survey design, implementation, and analysis.
Report
2018 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice
In 2018, U.S. consumers made 72 payments per month on average, not a significant change from 2017.As in 2017, the most frequently used payment instruments were debit cards (34 percent of alltransactions), cash (24 percent), and credit cards (23 percent). Over the 11 years of the survey, debit,cash, and credit have consistently been the most popular ways to pay. For the first time in 2018, debitcards replaced cash as the payment instrument used most frequently for in-person purchases.Some key findings about medium-term trends from 2015 to 2018 include the following:• The share of consumers ...
Report
The 2016 and 2017 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice: Technical Appendix
This document serves as the technical appendix to the 2016 and 2017 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice administered by the Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR). The Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) is an annual study designed primarily to collect data on attitudes toward and use of various payment instruments by consumers over the age of 18 in the United States. The main report, which introduces the survey and discusses the principal economic results, is on our website at frbatlanta.org/banking-and-payments/consumer-payments/survey-of-consumer-payment-choice. In ...
Report
The 2011 and 2012 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice: Summary Results
In 2012, the number of consumer payments did not change significantly from 2010 as the economy settled into steady expansion following the financial crisis and recession. After increasing by 28 percent from 2008 to 2010, cash payments by consumers fell back by 10 percent from 2010 to 2012, while the share of cash payments dropped for a third straight year to 26.8 percent. However, the number and dollar value of cash withdrawals and the dollar value of cash holdings by consumers increased in 2012. Credit and charge card payments by consumers, which declined in 2009, rebounded further, ...
Report
How Consumers Get Cash: Evidence from a Diary Survey
Most research on payment instruments focuses on how consumers pay or spend their money using a wide variety of payment instruments including cash. This report focuses on the inverse of the question of spending, that is, how do consumers obtain cash? Data from the 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice shows that, over a three-day period, about 21 percent of survey respondents get cash via various methods, such as getting cash from a family member or friend, using an ATM, getting cash back at retail, visiting a bank teller, etc. We find that consumers mostly get cash from family and friends, ...
Report
U.S. Consumers' Holdings and Use of $100 Bills
Conventional wisdom asserts that $100 bills are often associated with crime and foreign cash holdings, leading some commentators to call for their elimination; in light of this proposal, it is useful to examine the legal, domestic use of cash. This report uses new data from the 2012 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC) to evaluate consumer use of $100 bills as a means of payment.
Report
Estimating Population Means in the 2012 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice
This report examines the effect of adding to a longitudinal panel on estimates of population parameters in the 2012 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) more than 1,000 newly recruited respondents specifically targeted to fill segments of the U.S. population that tend to be underbanked and underrepresented in the longitudinal panel. In many ways, the new respondents have fundamentally different characteristics from the ongoing respondents. To minimize confounding sources of change to annual estimates when making comparisons across years, the official 2012 SCPC publication was based on the ...
Report
Merchant Steering of Consumer Payment Choice: Lessons Learned From Consumer Surveys
Recent policy changes allow merchants to influence consumers' choice of payment instruments by offering price discounts and other incentives. This report describes lessons learned from using consumer survey responses to assess whether merchants tried to influence buyers' choice of payment method. To measure the effects of these recent policy changes, we included questions about merchant steering in pilot versions of a new diary survey of U.S. consumers. Our findings are inconclusive because some respondents interpreted the questions differently from the way we intended. This report aims to ...