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Chip and PIN Facts

Information August 2005 - Fast facts cards, cash and crime

  • More than 42 million people in the UK hold plastic cards
  • There are more than 166 million plastic cards in issue in the UK
  • The number of payment cards (debit, credit and charge) exceeds 141 million

There are 24.8 million stand-alone cash machine cards and 0.8 million cheque guarantee cards in issue

  • Over 8.3 billion transactions were made on UK cards, with a value of £464 billion in 2004
  • Debit cards were used 3.7 billion times for purchases with a value totalling over £150 billion in 2004
  • Credit and charge cards were used 1.9 billion times for purchases with a value of £123 billion in 2004
  • The average purchase value on a UK-issued credit card in the UK is around £58 and £41 for debit cards.

Cash machine facts

  • There are 54,412 cash machines in the UK – up from 46,461 in 2003
  • In 2004 96.6% of all cash withdrawn were from bank owned cash machines
  • In 2004 there were 2.53 billion withdrawals from cash machines in the UK – an average of 80 per second
  • The total withdrawn from UK cash machines in 2004 was £161.3 billion – or £5,114 per second
  • The average cash withdrawal at a bank owned cash machine is £65 and £45 for an independent
  • 32.9 million adults in the UK are regular cash machine users

Retail Terminals

  • There are an estimated 920,000 POS (point-of-sale) retailer terminals in the UK

Plastic card fraud facts

  • 504.8 million of card fraud took place on UK-issued cards in 2004
  • Almost 1.4 million worth of card fraud occurs on UK-issued plastic cards every day
  • A fraudulent transaction takes place every seven seconds
  • Just over 53 per cent of all fraudulent card use in the UK takes place at the retail point-of-sale
  • In 2004 the average loss per fraudulent case was £696
  • In 2004 the average value of a fraudulent transaction was £117
  • If chip and PIN was not introduced estimates were that card fraud would be £800 million by end of 2005

- All information correct as of 31 December 2004 - Information Courtesy of chipandpin.co.uk