The use of cheques and cash has seen a decrease among UK consumers during the second quarter of 2010, with people turning to faster and more convenient payment methods, money-news.dailyfinance.co.uk reports, citing the Payments Council.

The UK residents have wrote an average of 290,000 (10 percent) fewer cheques each day during the three months to the end of June 2010, compared with the same period of 2009, the Payments Council has revealed. Cash usage has also declined, since the amount of cash withdrawn from ATMs, generally seen as a proxy for the amount of cash used for transactions, was 3.2 percent or GBP 1.6 billion lower when compared to the same quarter of 2009.

On the other hand, debit card usage rose by 12.4 percent during the period, while the level of transactions carried out on the faster payments system increased, reaching 67 percent as more banks made the service available to their customers.

Credit card spending was also weak, rising by 3.9 percent , barely ahead of inflation, due to the ongoing shortage of credit, as well as increased debit card usage.