OREANDA-NEWS. More and more people in Latvia give preference to payments by bank card - as much as 86% of the residents of Latvia normally pay without the use of cash in daily life.This was found in a survey by Swedbank about the shopping habits of consumers.

The shift in payment habits has been most notable among urban dwellers. In 2013 cash payments were the preference of 21% of urbanites, whereas this year the figure dropped to 16%.

The payments habits of shoppers vary quite substantially depending on their level of income. A third of shoppers with income of up to 300 euros prefer paying in cash, whereas shoppers with higher monthly income opt for cash payments extremely rarely – only in 4% of cases. What’s more, it is the shoppers with highest income who most often, i.e. in 67% of cases have found themselves in a situation where they’re had had to forego a purchase in a retail location due to non-cash settlements not being available. People with higher income also spend more and make bigger purchases but moving around with large amounts of cash in the pocket can be dangerous and simply inconvenient.

“These habits of consumers basically mean the task for the businesses to offer non-cash settlements to its clients. Expectedly, over time this pressure on the part of consumers will become increasingly notable and if the service provider does not except the option to pay electronically they will the run the risk of losing a portion of their potential customers. Conversely, according to our data, the introduction of electronic payments may increase the turnover even threefold,” says Be?te Krauze, the Head of Cash Flow and E-Products Department at Swedbank.

Swedbank’s survey of the residents of Latvia was carried out in August 2015 in cooperation with OmnicomMediaGroup on the web by polling 726 people living in Latvia.