U. S. Consumer Cash Use, 2012 and 2015 : An Introduction to the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice

U.S. consumer cash payments averaged 26 percent of all U.S. consumer payments by number (volume share) from 2008 to 2015, according to the Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC), and were essentially unchanged between 2012 and 2015. New estimates from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC) show that the volume share of consumer cash payments is higher than estimated in the SCPC and suggest that the cash volume share was 8 percentage points lower in 2015 than in 2012. The DCPC most likely does not provide an accurate estimate of the actual change in the cash volume share, however, due to changes in survey methodology. Counterfactual simulations controlling for survey and economic changes suggest the cash volume share declined approximately 2 to 5 percentage points due to changes in consumer preferences between 2012 and 2015