Shifts in Non-Cash Payments

The most recent Federal Reserve Payment Study has published data for 2024 on “core noncash payment methods used in the United States by consumers, businesses, and governments, including payments by general-purpose and private-label cards, automated clearinghouse (ACH) transfers, and checks. This release also covers ATM cash withdrawals.” One way to summarize the results is to look at the value transferred by different method; another is look at the number of noncash payments. You would expect these to be quite different. For example, imagine a person who has their paycheck automatically deposited at their bank and has their mortgage payment made automatically by a transfer from their bank. that person might quite likely have a greater number of credit card payments and checks than those two big bank transfers, but the amount of value in the two big bank transfers could be greater than the total value of credit cards and checks. Here’s a figure showing the value from different noncash…