Shoppers’ use of cash has fallen to its lowest level on record, a report by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said in its latest retail payment survey. The data reveals that a growing proportion of smaller payments previously made in cash are now being made in other ways.

The 14% fall in the use of cash over the past five years is largely due to the increase in popularity of online sales and contactless payments in that time, the BRC said.

The retailer group added that its survey results also pointed to "unjustifiably" high charges for retailers to process card transactions, with the average costs of processing a credit or charge card payment up 18%, in the past five years and the cost of processing debit cards up 4%.

Cash accounts for 53% of transactions but 9% of costs, as opposed to debit cards which account for 32% of transactions but 37% of costs.

Meanwhile, credit and charge cards account for only 9% of transactions but almost half (48.7%) of costs.