New research by The Payments Council shows there have been massive changes in the last decade to the way we pay our

bills.

The Council said The Way We Pay 2010 report revealed a ’payments revolution’ occurred in the noughties, and this looked set to continue over the next decade.

It added: "The last decade not only saw the rise of internet banking and shopping but it was also the decade where cards took control of our wallets as cheques and cash were increasingly replaced by a card – particularly the debit card."

Changes include:

• The rapid decline of cash wages: A decade ago one in eight workers still got paid cash-in-hand. By 2009 just one in twenty took wages home in notes and coins. By 2018, it will be only one in fifty.

• The use of cash is predicted to fall below half of all transactions for the first time: Six in ten transactions still involve cash, but almost 80% of these are for less than £10. In just five years, cash transactions are expected to represent less than half the total for the very first time.

Mike Bowman, comments: “Although cash won’t disappear in our lifetime, the continuing payments revolution will make it an ever smaller part of our spending. Even the traditional sight of people waving tenners at the bar is fast vanishing. They’re more likely to brandish their debit cards now as they compete to get served. ”

• Cheques check out: Cheque usage has been falling since 1990. Just 0.8% of retail transactions are now made by cheques.

• Credit cards reach maturity as debit cards rise to dominate the payments revolution: Card usage has flourished as traditional payment means have withered. But credit card usage has actually fallen in real terms since 2005. Debit cards have become the payments workhorses. We have increased how much we spend on cards fourfold in ten years and will use them six billion times this year.