From 2012 to 2015, credit and debit (including prepaid and non-prepaid) card payments continued to gain ground in the payments landscape, accounting for more than two-thirds of all core noncash payments in the United States, according to a Federal Reserve study of U.S. non-cash payments released December 22, 2016. Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments grew modestly over the same period, and check payments declined at a slower rate than in the past.
The 2016 Federal Reserve Payments Study, which presents 2015 payments data, found that the number of domestic core non-cash payments totaled an estimated 144 billion – up 5.3% annually from 2012. The total value of these transactions increased 3.4 percent over the same period to nearly $178 trillion.
For more information, including additional key findings, review the initial data release report (Off-site, PDF). Additional detailed information will be released in 2017 as the results of further analysis become final.