Could The UK Be Cashless In 20 Years?

Over two-thirds of the British population believes that contactless payment technology might completely replace cash in the U.K. within the next 20 years, a survey has found.

The findings emerged in a survey of 2,000 Brits conducted by London & Partners. About 68 percent of the respondents said they expect cash to disappear by 2036. The numbers were found to be even higher in London, where 75 percent expected contactless payments to replace cash.

The results of the survey corroborate MasterCard’s recent report, which claims that contactless spending in the U.K. has improved by 326 percent year on year.

“We’re in what we might call a perfect storm for payments right now. There is a virtuous circle of creation and adoption in FinTech, where tech-savvy consumers and entrepreneurs are feeding from each other,” said Elliott Goldenberg, head of digital payments for MasterCard U.K. and Ireland.

The shift in public sentiment toward cash comes with the increasing adoption of contactless payments in the U.K. Earlier this year, PYMNTS reported a threefold increase in U.K.’s contactless spending, reaching £7.75 billion ($10.76 billion) in transaction volume and marking a sharp increase from the £2.32 billion ($3.22 billion) spent in 2014.

In London, a major source of this rise in popularity is contactless Tube payments. According to a U.K. Cards Association report, the contactless transaction volume in 2015 constituted 1.05 billion in contactless payments, of which 79.3 million were made using NFC-enabled credit and debit cards. The report pointed at an upward growth in the years to come, with 140 million (or 52 every second) contactless transactions being recorded last December.