The UK card spending ratio figure is slightly disingenuous. What should be considered is how many payments are under £20 (the contactless limit) and how many of those are contactless. I'm pretty sure it's higher than the 0.2314%.. probably closer to 4 or 5%. And this figure will climb significantly with TfL going live this year with contactless payments on the underground.

Whilst the Fed may be looking at the cheque issue (we tried and got beaten down by the pensioner lobby) NACH have already said they don't want faster payments when thy voted down a proposal to provide this via the ACH network, - http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_219/how-big-banks-killed-a-plan-to-speed-up-money-transfers-1063631-1.html - for reasons that are beyond most of us.

I do agree that some of the banks are innovative, but when you look at the likes if ISIS and how that has been something of a failure (and with WEVE we have our own MNO failure) and how it took a UK MNO to show how mobile payments can really work (MPesa) then I think both countries have a pretty equal footing. For a country one fifth the size, with a handful of banks.. we do pretty well when it comes to innovation .. at least I think we do!