Growing debit and credit card use is affecting how often Texans carry cash, suggest the results of a survey by Swacha, a Dallas-based regional-payments association.
In the online survey of 400 Texans Swacha conducted in February last year, 5% of respondents said they never carry cash; 6% did not carry cash during the previous six months; 7% did not carry cash during the previous month; 8% did not carry cash during the previous two weeks; 16% did not carry cash for more than the past week; 21% did not carry cash during the past week; and 20% did not carry cash during the previous three to four days, says Dennis Simmons, Swacha president and CEO. Swacha released the results publicly this month at PaymentsSource’s request.
“We think the rationale is more people pay with their debit or credit cards,” Simmons says. Swacha did not ask survey participants whether they preferred paying with debit or credit cards, but Simmons believes more Texans are reaching for their debit cards to control spending.
Card use also is affecting the amount of cash consumers carry in their wallets. The survey found 32% of respondents carried less cash than they did a year earlier, 59% carried the same amount and just 9% carried more cash.
Swacha’s members include 1,100 financial institutions, government agencies, businesses and professionals in Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana, though the majority are in Texas, Simmons says.
