End of July sees record Direct Debit payments
04/08/2015
The end of July saw 100 million Direct Debits processed in just one day, setting a new record and marking another milestone on the path of the UK becoming a cashless society.
On the 31st July, there were a record 103 million Direct Debit transactions, as salary payments tend to go into bank accounts at the end of the month. The highest level previously was 99.3 million in February 2015. The increase is thought to be down to drivers paying for their vehicle tax via Direct Debit after a monthly payment option was introduced in October. The huge increase in Direct Debits meant that Bacs, the company who deals with them, had to sort out 111,000 payments every minute.
The increase could also be a sign of economic recovery. The growth of Direct Debits in 2014 was the highest it has been since 2007, before the financial crisis hit. Eight out of ten adults in the UK now have a least one kind of Direct Debit going out of their bank account and around 71% of households have all their bills paid this way.
20% of the adult population do not have any kind of Direct Debit payments set up. This could be due to the fact that one in 10 adults do not have a bank account and 7.8 million people are unable to access mainstream credit, according to the Resolution Foundation.
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