BUSINESS owners in the Bradford district say contactless is now king over cash for customers paying for goods.
Around nine in 10 eligible card transactions in 2021 were contactless, according to data from Barclaycard.
Some 91.1 per cent payments where "tap and go" would have been an option were in fact contactless.
This was up from 88.6 per cent of eligible transactions in 2020.
An increase in the contactless transaction limit from £45 to £100 in October 2021 helped to boost the figures.
Individually, the average contactless user made 180 contactless payments in 2021, worth a total of £2,293.
Contactless payments are on average seven seconds quicker per transaction than using chip and pin and 15 seconds faster than using cash, Barclaycard said.
Owners of cafes, shops, florists and dog grooming salons all agree that the majority of payments are now made by customers tapping their card rather than drawing out cash.
Craig Bradley, co-owner of The Quaffery, Bingley Road, Saltaire, tries to steer his cafe customers away from paying by cash.
He said: "We discourage cash payments altogether.
"I would say 98 per cent of our payments are made by contactless."
Mandi Binns, co-owner of butchers, Binns of Saltaire, said the pandemic has shifted people away from cash to pay for items.
She said: "It changed massively during Covid and over the last 18 months.
"We have three contactless payment units in the shop now."
John Redpath, owner of the Orange Grove greengrocers in Saltaire, thinks it will not be long before cash is a thing of the past.
He said: "I reckon in two years we will all be completely cashless.
"Cash has always been king before. It is 90 per cent contactless payment now. I only took £80 in cash payments last Saturday, out of £1,500. The rest was on card.
"I had a younger person who wanted to pay for a 35p garlic on contactless. Before Covid, the minimum spend on a card was £5."
Graham Preston, co-owner of the Shipley Haberdashery and Crafts in Shipley Underground Market, said: "We get a good mix of age groups for our customers. We are finding younger people are taking things up like knitting. Tom Daley has made it popular and young people use contactless more.
"I would say about 70 to 80 per cent of our payments are taken contactless now."
Tanya Sumner, owner of Elsie Russell florist in Shipley, said: "About 80 to 90 per cent of the payments we get are contactless.
"Not many people use cash anymore. People pay contactless by their phone and watches too. It works for people."
Christine Dunne, owner of Christine's K9 Cuts Dog Grooming Salon in Shipley, said contactless is the main form of payment she receives from pooch owners.
She said: "A lot of people don't like to use cash now.
"People just like to use contactless and just like to tap the machine and go."
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