by Trevor Sturgess

The use of cheques to pay bills is still falling rapidly, with a record 14 per cent dip in the second quarter of the year.

According to the latest figures, the total value of cheques fell by 20.9 per cent compared to 2008 Q2, whilst the number of cheques cleared fell by 13.7 per cent.

UK Payments Administration (UKPA), the organisation that monitors spending methods, said: "These figures show the rapid decline in cheque use and record the most marked decline so far."

The latest data cover plastic cards, credit card repayments, cash machine withdrawals, cheques, Faster Payments, CHAPS payments, direct debits and Bacs Direct Credits.

Plastic card spending was up three per cent from this time last year, reaching a total of £95.5bn. The number of purchases made was also up by 6.9 per cent.

But spending on credit cards fell slightly in terms of both the number of purchases and the amount spent, down -0.1 per cent and -1.0 per cent respectively.

This is the first time in two years that credit card spending has fallen to this level and matches all the recent data published by the Bank of England. But the amount people are repaying increased, showing that consumers are spending less and paying back more.

UKPA said: "Ratio of credit card repayments was 1.2 per cent higher this quarter when compared to the corresponding period of 2008. Credit card repayments have stayed consistently higher than the historical average over the last three years as people proportionately spend less and pay back more on their credit cards."

Debit cards accounted for 74.7 per cent of all plastic card purchases in the quarter, up 1.4 per cent from 2008 Q1.

The average value of a cash withdrawal this quarter was £65. The Faster Payments Service, launched in May 2008, processed 69.3 million payments to a value of £25.1 billion in the second quarter of 2009.

By the end of Q2 2009, almost half of all standing orders and 70 per cent of phone and online banking payments were made using the Faster Payments Service.