As the pound coin celebrates its thirtieth anniversary on 21 April, new research from GoCompare reveals that while cash remains king for small ticket items such as newspapers and magazines, over half of Brits (53%) prefer to use plastic for most of their purchases.
The survey conducted among over 2000 adults found that 34% of people try to pay with cash whenever possible and 48% said that they don't like being without any cash, with this figure rising to 57% for people aged 55 and over.
As a result, coinage is the main method of payment for purchases under a fiver, with 92% of those surveyed saying that they would use cash.
However, for items costing between £5 and £20, just over half (52%) said that they would pay by cash while a third would use their debit card, and 13% would pay by credit card. With two in five people saying they don't like to carry a lot of cash around, plastic moves into its own for purchases over £20.
The sub-£20 mark is the figure tragetted by card schemes for contactless payments as a replacement for cash transactions. While the market potential is huge, the displacement of physical cash remains a hard sell.
John Miles from Gocompare.com, comments: "Over the thirty years since the pound coin came into circulation, the way we pay for goods and services has changed dramatically. Despite this, our practical as well as emotional attachment to cash remains strong, particularly for older people, so it looks like the pound coin is going to be around for a good while yet."