Credit card payments jumped sharply from 2015 to 2016, surpassing all other types of card payments, the Federal Reserve said in a new report on Thursday (Dec. 21).
According to the Fed’s payment data, there was also a notable increase in the number of card payments made remotely from 2015 to 2016.
The number of credit card payments increased 10.2 percent in 2016 year-over-year to 37.3 billion with a total value of $3.27 trillion, compared to an annual rate of 8.1 percent from 2012 to 2015. The rise was helped along by strong growth in the number of remote credit card payments, which included both online shopping purchases and online bill pay. These increased by 16.6 percent in 2016, representing 22.2 percent of all credit and prepaid debit card payments – up 1.5 percentage points from an estimated 20.7 percent in 2015.
Remote payments, based on value, represented 44 percent of all general-purpose card payments, which marks a slight rise from 42.9 percent in 2015, the report noted.
The Federal Reserve also said that total U.S. card payments hit 111.1 billion in 2016, which is a 7.4 percent growth since 2015. The value of card payments increased 5.8 percent and hit $5.98 trillion in 2016. The growth of debit card payments slowed in both number and value from 2015 to 2016, with a 6 percent growth rate by number and 5.3 percent by value. This is lower than the growth between 2012 to 2015, which was 7.2 percent by number and 6.9 percent by value.
The Federal Reserve also found that use of chip cards increased from 2015 to 2016, reflecting an effort on the part of the payments industry to increase their acceptance at payment terminals.
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