New data from the Federal Reserve Payments Study (FRPS) finds robust growth in card and Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments from 2016 to 2017. Released on December 20, 2018, the Federal Reserve Payments Study: 2018 Annual Supplement (Off-site) covers core noncash payment types and systems that support everyday payments by U.S. consumers and businesses. It provides annual trend information to update the more comprehensive triennial study. This study finds faster growth in electronic payments from 2016 to 2017 compared with previous years.

Key findings include:

• Card payments continued to show robust growth from 2016 to 2017, collectively increasing 10.1 percent by number and 8.4 percent by value
• Remote payments continued to grow as a share of total general-purpose card payments
• Chip-authenticated payments accounted for more than half of the value of in-person general-purpose card payments in 2017
• Network ACH payments exhibited accelerating growth, increasing 5.7 percent by number and 6.9 percent by value from 2016 to 2017
• Large-institution check payments showed an accelerated decline of 4.8 percent by number from 2016 to 2017

About the Federal Reserve Payments Study

The FRPS is a collaborative effort by staff members at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to track and document developments in the U.S. payment system through the collection of quantitative survey data.