The 10 most cashless countries in the world - where does the UK rank?

A Visa card being used to make a contactless payment
Debit cards accounted for 8.1bn retail transactions last year Credit: PA / Barclaycard

The UK is the third most cashless society in the world, pipped to the post by Canada and Sweden, which were found to be ahead of the trend in ditching cash.

The rankings were based on six metrics: the number of credit cards per person; the number of debit cards per person; the cards in issue that have contactless functionality; the growth of cashless payments over the past five years; payment transactions made using non-cash methods; and the number of people that are aware of what mobile payments options they have available to use.

The research, conducted by Forex Bonuses, looked at 20 of the world’s top economies, with only the top 10 ranked.

Canada topped the table because its citizens have more than two credit cards per person, and the majority (57pc) of payments are made using cashless methods. However, it had the lowest number of debit cards per capita of all countries included in the research, and only 26pc of its debt cards have contactless functionality.

In Sweden, 59pc of consumer transactions are completed through non-cash methods, and 47pc of citizens are aware of the types of mobile payment services available to them, making it the second most cashless country in the world, according to Forex Bonuses.

In the UK, 41pc of cards have contactless functionality, and British consumers own 1.48 debit cards per capita, pushing it to third place in the charts. 

China ranks at number six in the list. While the Asian superpower has strong scores for many metrics, it is let down by a lack of credit card usage and a high remaining prevalence for cash payments, using cashless methods for only 10pc of transactions.

Debit, credit and charge cards were used for 10.3bn transactions in the UK in 2016, a rise of 5pc on 2015, giving plastic a 54pc share of all retail payments by volume, according to the figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) in July.

It marked the first time that cards have surpassed the 50pc level in terms of volume of retail payments, with the popularity of plastic bolstered by the rise of different types of payment technologies such as contactless.

The use of debit cards in particular has grown, accounting for 8.1bn retail transactions last year.

Despite the move towards plastic, cash is still predicted to make up around a fifth (21pc) of payments in 10 years' time, according to Payments UK.