Britons donate £1 billion to charity using plastic cards

Donations to UK charitable organisations by credit and debit cards reached a new high in 2007, up from £842 million in 2006 to £1.031 billion.

APACS, the UK payments association, reported that this represented a 23% increase by volume, from 18.5 million transactions in 2006 to 22.6 million in 2007. The increase consists of 2.9 million more debit card and 1.3 million more credit card payments, indicating that debit cards remain the popular option when giving. The average value of a donation on a plastic card in 2007 was £44.75.

Spending using affinity cards also increased last year: £7.5 billion was spent on the 4.8 million affinity cards in issue in the UK, representing an 8% increase from the amount spent in 2006.

APACS' figures cover religious, social and political contributions.

www.apacs.org.uk